2024. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen. becky is off today. it is just the boys keep saying on. u.s. equity futures. 36 points down if we opened up now. nasdaq is looking to open higher. six points higher. s&p off two points. treasury yields with the ten-year note is 4.244%. the two-year note at 4.468%.

we have watched amazon and uber. uber is joining the dow transports today. amazon at $17$175.41 and uber a $78.70. >> we have mark mahaney coming on. he is raising his target to $220. we can't -- cramer knows every stock in the universe and what it has done and where it is going. when i look at amazon, it was at 175 a couple years ago. >> it had been. >> at the beginning of 2023, it was down to $85. if we do a little bit longer-term chart, we will see it. we will see what mark has to say. he said in the latest report that there is so much for bulls to like with the margin

expansion and revenue growth and everything else. it has a decent market cap. it is no nvidia. it is almost $2 trillion. almost. national association of business economists, nabe, raising the growth forecast for the year to 2.2%. not only is that 1% above the previous estimate which would have been 1.2%, but also a positive number. that in and of itself, for 2024, shows you how far we have come. in addition, 75% said we will have a soft landing for the economy with just three rate cuts predicted this year. the first rate cut in june. let's go through the squawk planner. several data points of note on

tap. today is january new home sales at 10:00 a.m. durable goods and k shiller home prices. on wednesday, revisions and then jobless claims and the inflation gauge for the fed is core pce. and on the earnings front, a number of companies coming in with numbers. lowe's and macy's and e-bay reports tomorrow. on wednesday, salesforce and hp and paramount global. on thursday, ab-inbev and best buy and hp enterprises and dell. shares of denmark's zealand pharma. it is up 33% after strong results from the trial of the liver disease treatment. do you think it is liver disease treatment or perhaps something

else? >> weight loss? >> weight loss. weight loss. don't worry about your liver that's fine. that's good. it might work. you don't get 33% unless you are treating fat people. unbelievable. it is taking over the world. pharmaceutical. that is all people are interested in. nice to treat liver inflammation. it is a potential competitor in the booming rate loss market. 83% of adults saw positive results for a form of liver inflammation caused by excess fat cells. however, the company says the results demonstrate the highest dosage of the drug tested is s safe. it is treating the liver fat cells with the inflammation means you can use it for

obesity. it is going through five trials for people overweight or obese. that's the real impetus there. you think we're all going to be micro dosing? >> it is not just -- it is not just about obesity. it is like a longevity situation. >> that's a problem? >> for people who live longer. obesity. it controls the fat and glucose in their body. if you feel glucose is rusting the insides of your body. >> who believes that? people think glucose is rusting the insides of your body? >> yes. that's one way to think about it in terms of the cancers people get. >> you think glucose, you have definitive proof? >> i'm saying -- >> you only rely on the science

in all of your conversations. this is science you are giving me now? >> i'm not giving you science? >> glucose rusts the inside of your body and causes cancer? >> a lot of literature that suggests that glucose is a prime mover in a lot of the problems we have in our bodies? >> you have been saying that for a while. i can tell you the things that cause cancer, if you like? carcinogens and radiation. >> all of those things. >> genetic damage caused. glucose is not one of them. >> do you think glucose have nothing to do with it? >> i don't think there is any definitive evidence that glue causes genetic defects. i have no reason to believe that. i think it causes obesity and maybe that leads to things. i don't know.

i don't think it is fair to glucose. let's talk about a guy who drinks a lot of coca-cola. warren buffett and berkshire hathaway reporting a 28% jump of operating earnings in the fourth quarter. berkshire hathaway's cash grew to $167.6 billion. the record level from the prior quarter. the annual letter stating a handful of companies in the country capable of truly moving the needle at berkshire hathaway. they have been picked over by us and others. he said there were basically no companies outside the country to move the needle. this is first earnings report since the death of charlie munger. warren buffett praised munger's role in creating the firm calling him the architect of the company and himself the general contractor. he said he would take the stage

this time. he also made interesting comments about the electric business and regulations around electric and also the train business and how capital in intensive that business was. you rarely hear him talk about the regulations. you would be interested to know he was calling out the regulatory problems impacting those businesses as well as talking about some of the highlights of the business. it was a fascinating letter. of course, the first page devoted to charlie munger and his relationship were quite poignant. >> charlie did not like regulation. >> he deparidn't. he bought two businesses that are highly regulated businesses. if it you go back and think about it, they were not highly regulated businesses. >> check it out. su sugar. glucose. it is not a carcinogen.

however, over consumption of sugar can contribute to obesity which is an important factor of cancer. >> exacerbating the cancer. >> no. it can be a risk factor, obesity, to result in cancer. i love sugar. >> i know you do. >> i'm not sure -- there are times when i'm more worried about the substitute. i'm just going with the sugar. how many times do we have to find a sugar substitute. >> do you think it is a problem? >> not in moderation. i don't think so. you don't look like you have a glucose problem. >> a lot of people are trying to control their glucose for diabetes. even people who are not diabetic are trying to control their glucose. you want to get into ketosis to

lose weight. you need to rid your body of glucose. >> you know how many crazy things in the last 50 years we believe that turned out not to be true about red meat or about this or that and the other thing and fads. do you like saccharin? do you feel good with that? sugar substitutes are carcinogens. some of them have been in mice. once again, it is bad for mice. i feel bad for them. they get cancer. coming up, we talk about last week's tech-led rally and amazon joining the dow with mark m mahaney. we will talk about amazon with him. later, the buzz from washington on the deadline to avert a shutdown. we will also talk about the south carolina primary with jake

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mahaney. you are going to 220. you said a lot of metrics are really good in the most recent report. can you talk about them? there are five or six that make the bulls optimistic. >> so, i think we took the price target up from 180 off the earnings report of two weeks ago. amazon is the top pick. if you step back, it was added to the index and it was the broadest representation in the economy and you have consistent track record. you will get record free cash flow margins and you will get the exacceleration in the aws revenue growth. amazon presented as the company with the leadership and online retail globally with $1 trillion in sales.

now $50 billion in ad revenue. now the third largest ad platform in the world and cloud platform in the world. this is the broadest read for the consumer enterprises. it is a leader with the adjuanad adjustable markets. >> we need a new system. i'm trying to hear everything, mark, but it breaks up a little bit. it is much better when you're in studio. a couple of years ago when we were at 175, before the stock basically got cut in half, what was the valuation? is this 175 more reasonable when it was there a couple of years ago? >> i think so. we are looking at the asset that matures at 28 times free cash flow. valuation is more reasonable.

amazon went into the major investment cycle as they aggressively invested in next day and same dayand several hour delivery. that really trashed its free cash flow margins. they went two years negative free cash flow. you are out of that cycle. that made value for the company challenging where you had to go out several years to value it. free cash flow multiples are realistic now. >> it is your favorite among what do you call it now? how many are left? fabulous four? what did we ecide? your top pick. what else? >> we like meta still and we have a couple of contrarian picks in there. expedia and as the online travel play and doordash is turning the corner and about to get uber-like value cap.

it will start turning and generate positive cash flow. doordash will enter into the s&p 500 in the next year. >> when you don't want to own a stock, what rating do you give it? a an market performer? >> that would be one. joe, if you and i have gone through this before, amazon and e-bay are the two in online retail. the valuation discrepancies between the two are for good reason. e-bay trades at a reasonable 12 times earnings multiple. 13 times earnings multiple. the better marketplace is amazon.

that's a market performance for us. e- >> you would never have a sell. out of the biggest names, what would you have the least propensity to buy right now? just go through the seven. >> i would have to sell and most cautious on is e-bay. expedia, too. that has been a major change in opinion for us and exchange for us is airbnb. the major names is google, meta and amazon. in had our pecking order, amazon and meta is second and allphabe. the one missing piece is lack of strong cost discipline. that is what the financial markets want.

companies responded to that and investors responded to them. google hasn't been willing to do it. >> okay. anything we should really glean from going into the dow 30? what does this mean? >> i just think it is representation. what a long trip with amazon. i covered it now for 27 years. not since the ipo, but darn close to it. that stock for the first 10 or 15 years as a public company and the fact it expanded and it is a broad play with consumer strength and off advertising and now business-to-business logistics and pharmacy. amazon covers so many areas. it also gets most economically impacted than most companies. if there is hyper inflation, amazon sees it all. as inflation starts to weigh, amazon benefits. amazon is the broadest read into the economy.

it is almost surprising that amazon wasn't added a few years ago. >> mark mahaney, thank you. see you next time in studio. you have to make the trip in here. we get every bit of useful information and understand it. thank you. in the meantime, when we come back, results from the study on financial literacy in america. we will tell you some numbers, i don't know if it will make you happy or sad, but don't miss it. later today, interview with jpmorgan chase ceo jamie dimon at noon. it is happening on "the halftime report." the opportunities that come from being a black man in the c-suite are enormous. so are the responsibilities. i understand that i am an example for others to look to and inspire. i have a responsibility to make sure that i am lifting as i

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welcome back to "squawk box." the council of economic review is having the topic of education and literacy. tell us how it is? do kids, frankly, adults, how are we dealing with financial stuff? >> this year, our 2024 survey

says that 35 states now require students to take a class in personal finance to graduate from high school. that is up 12 states intfrom tw years ago. >> what is the goal? the goal is to get all of the states to do it. what is the impetus to get there? >> i think that the impediments are dropping away. people understand equitable access is important. people understand it takes a lot of people to come together and parents and teachers and lightni legislators to make the requirements chappen. this makes a difference. lower loan default rates and student loans. we are seeing more momentum. >> is it a high school class? >> we teach k through 12. we are focusing for the requirement on at least a one

semester class in high school to graduate. >> have you thought about teaching classes to folks in congress? >> you are not the first person to ask that question. >> i think -- don't you think, joe? they could run a class like a symposium or something. >> when there is testimony from the financial executive and the questions we see asked? >> it may be helpful. >> it started in the house. you know what? i think we need to be bipartisan or bi-legislature. i hear some of the people like elizabeth warren could speak to nan. >> with the standards we have, they are available to everybody. the concepts are sysimple. budgeting and risk. everybody is on board. >> how excited are you over the prospect of a.i. teaching

financial literacy? do you spend time thinking about that? >> i looked to see if it could come up with lessons. i think that is helpful. what is neat for me is if i could ask a question about something or a problem and if i were the a.i. machine, i could respond with another question or the next level down. that would be cool. >> people say financial education or financial literacy should be embedded in all sorts of classes. it shouldn't be a standalone class. it should be part of history and science and you can see how you can leverage it in different ways. is that the right path? do you think the path is you need to do it in a very directed way? >> i think any way you can get it is great. i like the idea of the full semester class to go deeply into the concepts. as a math person, i'm a big

person of integrated into math classes. a lot of kids say, math, yuck. >> not just finance? >> teaching them is great. one teaches the little picture of me and econ gives you the context of operating in the universe. >> would it kill you to make these kids get up early and watch "squawk box"? i'm not kidding. what time does school start? >> i don't know. >> you know that kids actually, the perfect time for school to start would be later rather than earlier and in a preferable world, they would wake up later and watch it on replay. >> or not starting cool until 9:30. watch from 6:30 to 8:00.

>> i would prefer the kids to sleep in. it is important to get sleep. >> they shouldn't be up late watching crap until 11:00. >> the rhythm -- >> my circadium rhythm is fine. >> the teacher can infuse the lesson or day of the week for "squawk." >> nan, you have a big day ahead. >> a launch event at visa offices later this had morning. we have a panel with politicians who helped us get this passed. people from pennsylvania and new york and students. >> we need to get all 57 states -- no, no. >> one of your guys. >> no. >> yes, it was. your favorite, in fact. >> who is my favorite? >> you know.

>> who said 52 states? someone else said, your friend -- >> i don't think my friend said that. i think they said 47. they don't honor some of the recent -- no. coming up -- they assume texas is gonie oon. today's political news and the potential shutdown as well as the south carolina primary. we have punch bowl's jake sherman joining us next.

good morning. welcome back to "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square. w we have red on the screen right now. the s&p is off marginally. in the meantime, former president donald trump winning the presidential primary in south carolina on saturday. trump won 60% of the votes and nikki haley won 40%. in the speech to reporters, haley said she would continue to campaign. a huge number of republican voters who want an alternative to trump. haley lost the donor charles

koch who is pausing campaign contributions. it still endorses haley for president, but doesn't believe an outside group can make a difference to widen her path to victory. there is a question when you look at results what it means for the rest of the country in the general election given the number mof people who came out against trump. you think i'm looking at the glass half full or empty. >> the demos are not positive. on the flip side, if you are a democrat, you can vote for nikki haley in south carolina. i would say at least five and you would have won by 25% or more. maybe. not getting suburban. a lot of the people necessary to win the general, including nikki haley supporters. >> right. >> that's "the journal" piece

that trump will need. that's a big number whether you include the democrats that crossed over to vote for her or not. that's a big number. you need them in the general. the republicans that are not voting for him. you need him to win to beat biden. >> that's the question. >> it's a mess. it's a mess on both sides. a mess. >> yes. that i will not dispute. we deserve better. we have other news. the rnc chair rhonna mcdaniel will step down next month after the new slate of leaders to direct the party. the rnc has undergone change once there is a nominee. it has been my intention to honor that tradition. iwonder who will take the job. >> they said it may be laura trump. i don't know if that will happen or not. >> then what? >> i don't know. it will not be you. that's all i know. >> you are thinking you are up

for it? >> it is not me. >> sure? >> i'm positive. >> i'll nominate you. >> you would do anything to get me out of here. i'm not leaving. joining us on the stories and the partial government shutdown is punchbowl news jake shermanfd. he is an nbc news analyst. thank you, jake. the elephant in the room. we have to see what happens with nikki haley. there are rumblings and she says i'm not going anywhere, but you are starting to see signals that the end might be coming. it may be the beginning of her trying to get a grace thful exi. >> her whole play is a hedge against donald trump being convicted or whatever. i think it is difficult to continue to make the case that she has a viable path when she hasn't won a single state. your point, joe, and her point,

40% is high. it's not an insignificant number of voters that don't want donald trump to be the nominee. i was talking to a group the other day and someone raised their hands and said where do voters go if we're republicans and we don't want donald trump. i said i think you will end up voting for donald trump. you don't want joe biden to be president and you will fold and vote donald trump. it may be overstated that republicans won't vote for trump. i hear your point on independents. it is scary for the trump campaign. >> immigration is just -- i don't know. there are people that would never vote for trump, i think because of what is happening at the border. they might say i don't care. i'm doing it. every timing something like georgia happens, that just

enflames passion. i'm talking about the tragic and unfortunate incident that happened in athens of that young nursing student. whenever that happens, you know, i'm sure you are on twitter. you saw how many people said they are assigning blame to the current separituation. >> listen, i'm not suggesting voters take into account the nuance of the situation. both parties have loads of blame here. >> i hear that, jake. i know they walked away from a deal after they wanted a deal. day one, he took all of the executive orders and he can put them all back in right now. all of the things that kept the border closed. he hasn't. he can look in the camera and

all those people can say this is not my fault. no one -- i don't think anyone is buying it. that's not enough. i can still see after we saw it in 2020 and we saw it in 2022. when it is all said and done, i don't know there are certain wins that make it difficult for trump to get over that 40% mark or 45% mark. i can see it happening again even if it is joe biden and kamala harris. >> i agree. joe biden took a big step on the border at the beginning of his term. democrats said to me privately, listen, we didn't take this seriously enough. we should have said what trump was doing on the border was not right, but we'll secure the border the way we believe it should be secured. they did not do that. they stepped around the fact that it is a crisis and i think everybody realizes that.

i was down there and i covered this stuff. i was shocked at the openness of the border in the eagle pass sector. i was down there with speaker mike johnson a couple of months ago. it is shocking to be honest with you. listen, biden hopes to muddy the waters and say republicans want this as a political issue. joe, i will say there is a lot of evidence that congressional republicans do not, at least in the house, do not want to solve this with biden in office. >> i'm certain -- i don't think we want to solve anything between now and november. is ukraine going to move? it seems people on the republican party that don't want to give more funding to ukraine, it seems the chore us of cries getting louder. if we give you the money, are

you telling us you are going to win? that's not going to happen. trump was asking for $5 billion to close the border. this bill is another -- this is another $$60 billion. this is just another 60, but we're talking 60 after that and 60 after that. >> it is unfair to compare with trump. he was a uniquely ineffective legislative president. >> mexico is going to pay. it would not be our $5 billion. you know what i mean. $60 billion. we don't know what really happens. when zelenskyy was recently on in interviews, he conceded it does go to pensions for soldiers and to taking care of families of people with 31,000 soldiers who lost their lives in ukraine. >> joe, this is not just

straight cash to ukrainians. some of it is weapons for ukrainians or replacing weapons. i do believe at some point this will get done. i think speaker mike johnson has been noncommittal and wobbly and if it gets done with the discharge petition which is a legislative maneuver for 218 people to bring the petition to the floor. taiwan aid is tied up in this as well. the supporters of israel, a vast majority of members of congress, are getting frustrated. >> jake, one more question for you. there have been lots of questions about the mental an cu acuity of the president. there were a number of headlines over the weekend taking on the

mental acuity of former president trump with the gaffes he made. joe and i were talking about it during the commercial break. >> i don't think it was close. >> what do you think is happening? >> let me put on my neurology cap for a second. i don't know the answer to that. i think republicans are not going to criticize trump no matter what he does. he could completely freeze on stage and have no one say anything about him. i think there are a lot of democrats who are extraordinarily worried about joe biden and his ability to win. i think the odds are 85% biden is the nominee when the convention comes around in a couple of months. i don't think it is close. >> i have seen the town hall. he talks for an hour and a half. his answers are sometimes insane, but not off a cue card where the simplest two sentence

policy is not possible. it is not the same sport much less the ballpark . he takes questions for an hour and a half. when was the last time biden took unscripted questions. it's not close. >> jake sherman. i don't prop up. jake sullivan. >> sorry. yeah. jake sullivan. sherman. you are sherman. >> i'm jonathan. jake, thank you. nice to see you. >> kirby i got right. we have more coming up on "squawk box." insider trading case where a husband traded on non-public information he overheard while working from home with his wife. we will bring you that story next.

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welcome back to "squawk box." this is a fascinating story. a husband of the former bp manager pleaded guilty. he earned $1.6 million from trades based on non-public knowledge. he learned of the plans to acquire travel centers of america while working remotely within earshot of his wife. work from home policy. over the next few months, he sold all of the positions in the account and roth and accumulated 46,000 shares of travel centers without telling his wife. this is according to the u.s. attorney's office. he is due to be sentenced in may and will face five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. he agreed to forfeit the $1.76

million in illegal profits. joe, i was thinking about this story. lawyers and bankers and others in regular contact with non-public information is one thing with the information in the context of the office. you think it is dangerous for that to be in an office. the flip side is the flip side when you're doing it all from home, there's a lot of people sometimes in your house. you got kids who might be hearing you. you have spouses. i mean, i don't know about you but sometimes there's news that i even hear about, i always have to keep it close to make sure no one in my family knows what's going on, and the lawyers and bankers and other people like that often have to do that. how much of this stuff leaks out in a work from home world rather than a work from office unit? >> yeah, i don't think you need to worry probably yet, right? kids are 13. you don't think that they're hearing you and they're -- >> oh, do i think my -- no, hopefully not. >> calling robinhood, listen --

>> no, no, no, look, when you live in a world of confidential information, you don't want other people to know it for obvious reasons. even a spouse or children should not be in possession of this information, just out of fear that they would say it off -- you know, at a coffee shop to their friend or whatever it is. >> it's possible. >> here you are in a universal verse where there's more of those sort of overheard conversations perhaps and here's a great example of it going off the rails. >> right. it would be -- it's a possibility, but i wouldn't lose any sleep thinking about it. maybe you more than me, but there's been certain things that i've known that i wouldn't want to -- wouldn't want getting out and i keep my mouth -- you know, keep your mouth shut most of the time. you know what they say about loose lips. >> sure, but if they're -- if the office is the dining room and that's how people are running their life it becomes more complicated. coming up on the other side

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welcome back to "squawk box," in a linkedin post the ceo of meditation insight timer blasting apple over enforcement of its app store rules. the company's ceo christopher plowman writing either we comply with apple's demands or insight timer will die. these are our two choices. ap app our teachers find themselves caught in a definitional crack. the guidelines are to provide a fair and level playing field for developers and it will review all apps against the same rules. joining us right now is insight timer and cofounder christopher

plowman. you haven't died yet. that's the good news. you're trying to comply. where do things stand and let's get into it? >>complied. we had no choice as i said in my post. so we have agreed to apple's rules and we are now currently back in the app store, to clarify we were never taken out of the app store. we were told we would no longer be able to submit any upkadateso the platform. the 20,000 teachers on our platform are paying apple 30% of their tip and donation income. and this is kind of a situation that at this stage i don't know how it addresses itself. >> so christopher, let me ask, this is a philosophical and practical issue for you. how much of this is about your view that the app store rules are not consistent versus an almost philosophical question

about whether apple should be considered at this point or google for that matter a utility, if you will, and therefore a utility would have to charge different and, frankly, regulated pricing? >>i oh, gosh, you can come at that from two different angles. i think no one would dispute the fact now that we find ourselves, at least the developer economy in a situation where apple -- if you want to access the top 2 billion wealthiest customers on the planet, you have to go via apple. you have no choice. and apple's view is that they built the app store, that they built the iphone, that they're entitled to monetize and profit from this invention. it's a reasonable position except, of course, when that asset becomes at some point a monopoly. it's not possible for a

developer to create an alternate platform any longer. it's not possible for teachers to create new income, unless they go via apple. it's just not possible, and therefore it's not possible to comp compete, and so i think we find ourselves in a situation where we admire the technology and tools that apple has built, but unless you're willing to pay apple 30% anything goes on inside your platform, you can't operate a platform. so i'm going to leave that to the regulators. it's not up to me. you said earlier that we're blasting apple. i'm really trying not to blast apple, right, what i'm trying to do is create a civilized and constructive debate about the situation, which is how far does this go? how much longer do we put up with this situation where you can get two companies, one is apple and one is a tiny company like mine that disagree over a commercial principle, and yet, one of those companies, apple, decides. apple writes the rules.

it changes the rules. >> i think the question and issue to some degree is if i owned a store on the corner over here and you came and is said, , i'd like you to sell my product in your store. i would as the store owner be able to say, yeah, you know, we collect x amount of money. you can argue i wouldn't be able to collect that money because you argue you have more competition, you could sell your wears at wares next door, that goes to the monopolistic question. >> if you own the only store on the planet, your sentence doesn't stand up. apple owns the only store on the planet, and so we saw this with the railroads, we saw this with the oil companies, the telecos. at some point someone has to say, look, the amount of power ha this company has means simply -- and this is me kind of

being gentle -- means simply that other individuals can't compete without -- >> the thing, christopher that i -- when you first developed your app for apple, were the rules different? >> yes. so. >> okay. i got to be careful how i phrase this. apple's -- insight time ser is business that does $20 million a year, we pay 30% of that to apple. we'd love to play yes. apple has another feature which says that people can pay other people voluntarily via the app store and if the developer, insight timer, takes zero commission on that payment, apple will take no commission either. so we introduced this feature in october 2022. we allowed our community, we have about 25 million people on insight timer mow, we allowed our community to donate to our

teachers. >> right. >> they do about $100,000 a month. it's a small amount of revenue. and apple approved this feature. they approved it over a period of a year, and at some stage recently, they decided that we were not compliant and that apple was entitled to 30% of these donations that were paid to teachers. >> right. >> and i said, well, you're not, and they said, well, we are. and they win. but that's what -- >> right. christopher. tim cook happens to be a frequent viewer of this program. if you have 20 seconds to speak to him directly, what would you tell him? >> i think it's time for apple to work more closely with developers on building a sustainable creative economy. i understand that apple wants to take commission on gaming credits and all these sorts of digital items, but we havemoved

into a digital world. everyone interacts with their customers now online. apple can't say that if something's digital content they take it third. you can't build a creator economy, a marketplace where you have service providers selling their time to customers if apple's taking 30%. they need to look at this wall and they need to help us redefine it, and we'll get back to business. >> okay. >> christopher, it's good to see you. we appreciate your perspective on all of this. i'm sure this debate is not going away, but i wish you well l along with all the teachers on the platform. thank you. >> appreciate it. >> you bet. >> i would tell them that i still have to put the right ear plug, those little things in my left ear, and i have to put the left one in my right ear to get them to stay, so they're not designed with my ears, so tim, if you're watching, it still doesn't work. i still have to switch right and left on my pods, whatever

they're called. >> i don't even know what you're talking about at this point. >> you said tim cook watches. >> correct. >> if i use the right one and put it in my right ear, they fall out. i lose them. they go down grates walking around the city. i have to switch them so they stick. they're not made with my ears in mind. it's just after 7:00 a.m. >> you need the air pod pros. >> i have the air pod pros with the different attachments. i still have to switch them, sorkin. yours happen to fit? they're designed -- i'm not surprised. they fit your ears. >> you're watching "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site from times square, i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin who they fit perfectly. >> i like apple stuff, i do. >> i'm in the ecosystem, all my music, everything comes from that. u.s. equity futures closed at all-time highs on the dow and

the s&p on friday, not much happening today, a little bit of giveback on amazon day. uber goes into the transports. >> big day. national association for business economist forecasters now have raised their growth forecast for 2024. steve liesman joins with us that good news. steve. >> yeah, this is interesting, andrew, forecasters at the neinabe backing off their outlook for low potential growth. higher growth, less inflation, and still low unemployment. here are the numbers compared to december. 22 is the gdp. that's up almost a full percentage point. down just a bit from the 2.5% actual in 2023. down 0.1 from the previous forecast and below the 2023 number, unemployment 39, that's 3/10 lower than they thought. it seems that the average forecaster has abandoned what

was the prevailing idea and it was proven wrong in the past several years, that the economy needed to run below potential. unemployment would have to rise sharply in order to bring down inflation. inflation came down despite growth and low unemployment. if that sounds like a soft landing, it's because it is. 3/4 of respondents see the economy heading for a soft landing. the survey sees the fed lowering the funds rate to 4.6 this year in line with the fed's own forecast and pretty much where the market is now, not where it was but where it is now. goes to 3.4 next year. that's a bit more aggressive than the fed has dialed in. you t you can see those numbers there. this year will be another test for the idea that u.s. inflation can fall without below potential growth. the underlying story could be pro produ productivity. 41% of forecasters say the big upside risk to the economy is strong productivity. the downside risk the fed

staying too tight. andrew i was looking back at their forecast a year ago. they got unemployment pretty close, they got inflation pretty close. they were just way off on gdp. a year ago they forecast for 2023, 0.8%, it came in at 2.5% for the are year. >> fascinating. steve, so maybe -- well, maybe things are going to be not so bad, joe. do you feel like -- i know you like -- you don't think the economy's going so great, but this is a different story. >> i don't know what to think. economy -- i don't know why, i don't know where it's coming from, whether it's still some residual, you know, stimulus left. what i don't think makes people feel good is their -- they still don't have the buying power they had. that's not -- and people thought about the -- steve, the stock market finally got back to where

it was after rough sledding. i had a different question for you, steve. there actually is no one named wolf in the wolf brothers that bobby weir plays with. have i got that right? >> that is true. it's -- it's a thing that bobby has had trying to get a kind of -- i don't know, dangerous kind of -- he originally had a band called scaring the children that they -- the people around bob talked him out of actually using. he's, you know, maybe bob has a dark streak i guess is the best way to put it. >> i heard their tour, i think that they're still around and i heard let it grow, and it was a good version of -- you know, bobby is amazing. he's a -- i don't know, he's one of the seven wonders of the world, is he not? his voice is still pretty good. >> do you ever see his workouts, joe? he does workouts with a big medicine ball and does all kinds of stuff. >> you told me we were going to

hang out sometime and you never -- you told me that you were going to get me a personal au audience, and you never did that, steve. we got to go, though. >> you don't want to talk about gdp or productivity, joe, or all the things that are happening? i can talk about bob as long as you like. >> is the productivity going to be better with ai? that's what i want to know. >> that was one of the things i was hoping to talk about. i don't know at this point, joe, if the economists are dialing in ai into their forecasts. it's something that i think that if you take the old green span model, remember green pan in '96, he said, you know what? people are buying this tech stuff, so therefore, i think it's going to have some kind of effect. who am i to say that all businesses are making bad decisions? you know, i'm not talking about the price of nvidia's stock, i'm talking about the fact that they're buying these chips. if they're buying these chips, there's this prevailing idea that, hey, maybe there's some return to it, and that return i.

i don't know if these are early days to dial it into the forecast. it does create some, if you take that idea that greenspan had in the mid-'90s, there is some upside for productivity down the road. there's another idea, robert gordon, he's kind of like the pessimist when it comes to this stuff. he says it will just deliver the 1 or 1.5% productivity that we normally have. there's two sides to the coin here. it's interesting that ai may be part of the productivity story in the years ahead. >> anything else that you had to get that off your chest. you like the inference chips or the training chips? now ident've moved on. >> i read that this weekend. that's putting it to use, it's interesting stuff, and joe, i'll talk to bob's people if they want to maybe -- >> it's too late. >> i feel bad about that. >> too late. because you said that at one point, it's too late for jerry,

that's for sure. all right, see you, steve. coming up later this hour, the supreme court set to hear arguments in a case that could have a big impact on social dicompanies, eamon javers has that story straight ahead. you don't want to miss it. we're coming right wback after this. switch to shopify and sell smarter at every stage of your business. take full control of your brand with your own custom store. scale faster with tools that let you manage every sale from every channel. and sell more with the best converting checkout on the planet. a lot more. take your business to the next stage when you switch to shopify.

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welcome back to "squawk box," shares of domino's pizza rising after reporting quarterly results. earnings coming in at $4.48 a share. $0.10 better than estimates. it's on revenue of $1.14 billion and not shy of expectations. the stock up about 6% on the back of this news. u.s. same-store sales up about 2.8%. that beat the street's 2.2% estimate. domino's raising its quarterly dividend by 25% and increasing its share repurchase program by $1 billion. a programming note, domino's ceo russell weiner is going to be on "power lunch" at 2:30 p.m. eastern time. i wonder if he brings pizza with him for that interview.

that would be one way to sort of, you know -- >> looking at that chart, it's been a great stock. when they relaunched some -- tried to get the quality better. it's done well. it really was -- i'm looking at what a pandemic play, have you looked at a long-term chart? totally pandemic play. got all the way up to -- god, it was above 500. joining us to talk markets, andrew slimmen, a senior portfolio manager at morgan stanley minvestment management, just sentiment wise, andrew, 2023 the most hated bull market in history, it turned out to be a great year. now people kind of accepting things. will we have a repeat of such a friendly market, or do you think we -- it's an election year, normally that happens. how are you macro, and then we'll get into some individual name. >> look, bull markets are born on pessimism.

that was last year. unfortunately what happens the first year after bear market lows, the market goes straight up. the second year markets grow on skepticism. i think that's where we are, and people are succumbing to the fact that maybe we're not going to have a hard landing and retail flows have flipped positive, and that's what usually happens in the second year. but unfortunately, you don't get an easy year like last year. i mean, i know it's one thing to say easier, but if you stayed invested, the market went prepretty much straight up last year. it's going to come with more volatility i suspect later towards the summer. >> i don't know how many times last year we -- we talked about that the lows were not in because the hit we had to revisit the lows and maybe set some new ones and just about every single person we had on said that. we don't talk about them because they were all wrong, every one of them, except maybe two or

three. which ones -- which stocks do you think we ought to be buying hear, andrew? >> well, i mean, you've had a big move in some of the tech names, but i think as you've just said in your previous segment, there's a lot of fiscal spending coming, and that's going to help the infrastructure plays. we like stocks like crh, which is a cement company. the chip companies said the other day as they build up all these chip plans, there was going to be a big demand for semiconductor semiconductor equipment. i think there are areas of the market. one of the things, joe, when you talked about last year the die c c die cot mee about last year, business is good, and walter said no, no, no, it's going to get bad. it never did. i see earnings coming in. the earnings for this year were higher today than they were at

the beginning of the year. earnings are stronger than what people expected. i think that's really going to support the market here. it's tough to build a negative framework. >> well, we always heard that, yeah, historically interest rates are still not that high, but it was such a rapid change off of zero that it's definitely going to, you know, it's definitely going to impact things and it's going to slow things down. i'm not sure anymore. we normalize rates and for years we saw businesses flourish at 6, 7, 8% rates, so why did we think it wasn't going to be possible this time? it was because of the change from being so low for so long, but companies are doing fine. >> that's right. and you'd layer in the fact that companies are being very stingy with their cash, they're buying back stock. they're not making a lot of frivolous acquisitions, and that's, you know, very accretive. stock buybacks have worked very

well the last, you know, last year and a half. so i think it's a good environment. i just worry a little bit, it's been awfully easy to make money in stocks, you know, we're up 23% off the low in october. somewhere along the way, there's going to be a bump, you know, and maybe it's now that every economist thinks we're going to have a soft landing. maybe wae'll get some print tha will scare that. >> you keep saying it was easy, but then you point out if you listen to the people on this network all through 2023, it wasn't easy because none of them would even be in the stock market. market's going up. >> all right. you were one of the few then andrew. >> all right, see you later, andrew, andrew slimmon. now andrew sorkin, ross sorkin. u.s. and uk carrying out fresh strikes against the houthis and yemen.

we're requgoing to have more on geopolitical tension and the white house response after the break and how much this is costing. a big week for retail earnings ahead, a preview of meyoshlde tcng. we are coming right back. 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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america's most reliable 5g network. sure is a lot safer than becoming a stuntman for money. get a free line of unlimited intro for a year when you buy one unlimited line. plus, get the new samsung galaxy s24 on us. welcome back to "squawk box." the u.s. and uk hit houthi targets in yemen. that took place on saturday in response to attacks by the iranian-backed militants last week in the red sea and gulf of aden. for more on this we want to bring in the former undersecretary of defense for policy who's no cofounder and managing partner of west executive advisers. great to see you this morning, michelle. help us sort of understand where we are in all of this and what comes next really? >> since early february, and they struck, you know, missile storage sites, radar facilities,

basically trying to degrade, diminish the houthis' ability to continue these strikes in the red sea. but the houthis' response was very defiant. they clearly are going to continue their efforts until the gaza war ends, and you know, short of invading yemen, which is not in u.s. interests, i think this is going to be a continued campaign of using air and missile strikes to try to continue to degrade their capabilities, but i think this is going to go on for some time until we see a permanent cease fire. >> is there something that we -- i mean, could the u.s. do more than it's doing? >> you know -- >> should it be doing more than it's doing? >> i think that we are doing, you know, as much as we can given the intelligence we have. it's not like we have a lot of folks on the ground in yemen, so i think as we find targets, the united states is striking them.

we're all -- i think the u.s. is also working hard to interdict missile and weapons supplies going to the houthis from iran. you remember a few weeks ago we sadly lost a couple of navy s.e.a.l.s that they were involved in those operations. so you know, i think the u.s. and this coalition we've built, this is now a number of countries that have banded together trying to address this problem, but it's a difficult one because they have a lot of capacity to continue taking shots a the shipping. even if they're not terribly accurate or effective, they are forcing shippers to change their routes and to avoid the risk. >> i want to pivot for a second, antony blinken made some critical comments about israel over the weekend, or maybe it was on friday now, around some of the settlements in the west bank and the like. to the extent that you talk to people behind the scenes, where

do you think the relationship between the u.s. and israel is looking like right now? >> look, i think there is a very -- you know, bipartisan strong support for israel's security, and that hasn't changed, but what is happening is there's growing frustration with, you know, president netanyahu and his policies because i think the administration has been trying to find a path through this crisis to, you know, see the hostages freed, see some resolution of the conflict, and then use that as a pivot point to work wards more of a strategic realignment in the region. you have saudi arabia and others wanting to improve relationships with israel and the u.s. and to alie against iran. finding a long-term solution for the palestinians has to be part of that equation. had netanyahu has been completely unwilling to really talk about that or even to

acknowledge that it needs to be po part of the solution. i think there's growing frustration with netanyahu and the way he's prosecuting the war and his unwillingness to consider what needs to come after the war when it'sended. >> hamas knows exactly what they're doing. i'm looking at a journal op-ed piece today admittedly from a spokesman of the israeli defense forces, but it is true that hamas is hiding behind citizens in gaza. >> absolutely. >> right now. they know exactly what they're doing, and they co-op american media like 60 minutes last night, i watched a piece on "60 minutes." it's exactly what the design of this whole strategy is, and it's really kind of nauseating to see it happen. and the poor gazan people are in the middle of everything that's happening, but it's all orchestrated, and we're going to criticize, you know, biden is under increasing pressure to

criticize netanyahu, and it just plays right into the hands of the savages that orchestrated the october 7th attack in the first place. >> well, i think, first of all, i agree with you. hamas using the civilian population and civilian infrastructure like schools and hospitals as human shields, and they operate under those hospitals and in those schools and so forth. so they bear primary and first, you know, responsibility for the horrible civilian casualties that have happened, and i think right now it's less criticism of netanyahu for the prosecution of the war, although there has been some of that. it's more, you know, his inability to think about beyond -- you know, beyond the war, and some resolution to the larger palestinian situation. and when you start to talk about building settlements, more settlements in the west bank or even on the far right in gaza, that's basically taking, you know, that potential longer term

resolution off the table, and so i think the primary criticism has not been about tactics. it's been about the strategic outlook and his failure to think strategically. >> i think they want to -- once hamas is gone, i guess they'll move to that next -- if that ever were to happen, it's not yet. >> my worry is ramadan is coming, and ramadan historically has been a time flaring up of clashes. i worry about the west bank exploding. so they've got to get to a hostage deal and some temporary cease fire before then, and then, you know, buy some time to sort out some of these larger issues. >> okay, michelle, thank you for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you bet. when we come back, we'll talk about the premarket movers. you've got to see what's going on this morning, look at the dow off about 25 points. we'll talk about that, nasdaq up marginally, the s&p 500 up 2.5, 3.5 points. we are coming right back after this.

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welcome back to "squawk box." i'm dominic chu with your morning movers. we're going to start with the big news from this past weekend. that's berkshire hathaway's quarterlyresults and warren

buffett's annual shareholder letter. shares of the class b stock, which are about $427,000 this year, about premarket, up 2.5%. they're the more liquidly traded version of this financial and industrial conglomerate's shares. burlington, santa fe rail, and brooks running, it reported a 28% jump in operating profits to $8.48 billion. it also has a record cash balance of 167.6 billion. that was driven in part by better results in its insurance business which helped offset a drop in rail operations. buf buffett did caution investors the company may do better than its average company. there aren't that many acquisitions left to be had that can move the needle for returns, with tho candidates for that outside the u.s. on the acquisition front. on the analyst front, shares of moderna are down about 1.5%. dragged down in part by analysts

at hsbc who have down kbraded the company most known for its covid vaccines to a reduce or sell equivalent rating, raise the target price up to 86 bucks from 75. they're citing uncertainty over vaccination usage rates for its upcoming rsv vaccine launch as well as its established covid-19 vaccine franchise as well. these shares down 1.5%. a slate of positive commentary, target price up raises, everything along those lines for software, cloud computing giant salesforce, the dow component is getting love from analysts team at jeffries, canha cord, citig citigroup and others. keep it right here, we've got more "squawk b,"ore wsox mne coming up next, we'll see you after this break. if rz

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. this week, a handful of retailers and consumer names due to report. joining us with more on some of those names and the state of the economy, is this a week you look bard to more than when you get the big boxes? because you still go into malls and seeing who's there. >> i still do that. you have to do that. you have to go to the store in order to see what's happening.

>> you used to tell me about hot topic. you go to across the board -- >> yes. >> still? >> i also look at the web too. i do a weekly trend report that i put out every week, that shows what the differences are. this week rurs last year, i've got six years worth of data. i'm looking at what these promos were over the past four or five years. >> are you on her list? >> i'm not. >> you were just talking about who's for you, you're having trouble. >> i don't know who's for me anymore. i don't. >> can you send -- can you help him? >> yes, i can help ou. >> what are we looking toward to that gives us an idea about the overall consumer sentiment? >> i think a couple of things. we got a little bit of a hint a couple of weeks ago when the retail real estate companies reported their earnings. you've had david simon on of simon properties. we heard that business was good, leasing demand is high. all my research shows new store openings are working, and look

what they talked about, new development. now, pivot here to what we're going to hear this week. we know that retail sales were bad in january. are retail sales ever that good in january? no, but we know that the consumer overall is still spending, maybe not as much on discretionary. they're spending on essentials. what i want to hear this week, i want to hear from macy's exactly what that state of their consumer is. we know their credit card debt has increased. we're going to hear from others, whether it's urban outfitters. i expect tjx to continue to be strong. when vendors like steve madden talk about the only channel of wholesale that's strong for them is off price, the off prices are going to win with traffic. that's what we're going to see and that's what my research shows. that's what my channel checks show. >> interesting because we love that -- retail sales must remember was weak. people that are worried about the fed, et cetera, raising -- that was one of the softer data points that didn't scare us like the employment numbers and so --

but you're saying there's a one-off. it's because it's never -- >> exactly. look what you have next, easter is coming up. we have an earlier easter this time. retailers are starting to put out their easter goods. andrew if you want to wear wide bell bottom jeans. >> can we talk about this? all the pants are getting wide now? >> yes, they are. >> men, women, the whole thing. >> how do you know this? >> because i have eyes. >> is he right? >> he's absolutely right. >> the pants are getting -- >> my pants have gotten much wider. >> back to pleats. >> in the waist. >> can we talk about that too? >> you know what you need when you have new styles like that, you need new tops, you need new shoes. >> there you have it, andrew. >> how long is this going to last honestly? >> when you talk about new pants cycles, it could be two or three years that it lasts. >> and then it's back to skinny jeans again. >> yes, there's got to be a reason to create demand.

that's the drivers. >> it's true. what? you're looking at me like -- >> it's just we live in -- >> what are you talking about? >> i haven't been thinking about what new tops i need to buy for my changing pants. >> men, men. >> i hear you, i hear you. >> even a well-addressed man like a brad pitt, he's wearing wide pants now. >> come on. >> yes. he's absolutely right. >> where do you see them, in people magazine? >> i read this stuff. i'm trying to know. >> he's in the know. >> one word. >> what's that? >> metro. >> metro what? >> he's a metro man. you're a metro man. >> i'll take it. loud and proud. >> drive sales -- >> send him your stuff. >> i will, you need sales increases. >> he doesn't have anybody now. you're not sure who you are. >> he knows who he is. >> i know who i am. i just don't know what to wear.

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could impact the sector. is this a javers, what's it called again? a javers -- >> javers report. >> javers files. >> this is just regular files. this is just regular, joe. >> okay. all right. let us know -- >> this is what we call a setup piece so it's not an exclusive because the supreme court, everybody knows about the supreme court. >> let me know next time it's coming on. let's roll into the story. >> i'll give you a text. look, today, we've got huge stakes for these social media companies in the oral arguments at the supreme court today. justices are going to weigh a set of laws in florida and texas that attempt to change how social media companies oversee the content that appears on their platforms. at issue here are laws passed in 2021 by conservative lawmakers in the two states who argue that sites like x formerly twitter and facebook are blocking conse conservative viewpoints from wider audiences. the question before the court

will be whether these laws are constitutional or not. and by extension whether social media platforms can decide how much exposure differing sets of viewpoints get ontheir sites or whether government can in essence force them to permit certain political speech. on the two sides will be the states themselves against attorneys for the social media trade groups including a group called net choice. the states will say that the social media companies have become something of a new digital town hall, and, therefore, they must allow unfettered speech. the companies will push back saying, no, no, no, the first amendment gives us, the companies the right to regulate speech on the sites, not the government. so the question here is who has the free speech right. no decisions are coming today. these are just arguments, but we should get a sense of where the justices are going to come town as they ask questions of the attorneys on both sides. fascinating set of debates here, guys, for social media. >> do you think we get this all squared away before or after we

get the ai liabilities all acquired away, eamon. we should have done this first i would have thought with that looming. >> the cord is unpredictable, and they kind of schedule these things when they schedule them, so not sure what the sequencing is going to be. but it's a fascinating debate today. you saw "the wall street journal" editorial today coming down against the tastates, righ? you shouldn't suppress conservative politicians speech. the journal saying, hey, wait a second, this is interfering with the businesses' rights to free speech and the free speech right should go to the business in this case. and the analogy is, you know, are these things like a shopping mall where, you know, it is a private business but people have free speech rights within that private business, or is this more like a newspaper where the government has to have hands off. >> exactly. all right, eamon, not the javers

files, but a good setup nonetheless. >> we'll bring you a good files soon. don't worry. >> i love all the branding behind you, joe's world. >> it's pretty neat. >> yeah. coming up when we come back, reddit and wall street bets fueling a stock frenzy during the pandemic, if you remember, among retail investors. we're going to find out what the social media company's announcement for going public will mean for retail investors. we are cinomg right back with the reddit army after this.

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having invested last summer. good morning to you. >> hi. >> as you read through it, what did you think? >> i kind of felt like reddit is one of those companies that is going to do better as a public company. i think they've been private for a little too long, and i think as a public company, they're going to kind of get that kick in the butt they need to maybe turn the corner toward profitability. that's spoken like a shareholder. >> spoken like a shareholder. what do you think would be the inflection point? it's not a startup. it's a mature company for 19 years old, still not profitable. so what does that say? >> they've obviously raised a lot of money. they're not profitable, but they've been able to thrive and survive. their user base is massive, and they have a really strong demographic, like a monetizable demographic. that's what i like about reddit.

i think it's one of those companies that needs to go to the next level, and i think taking them public will force their hand to learn how to be profitable. they have enough users. they should be profitable. >> what do you think about the correlation between the net and risk factors. they're going to be working with google, training for ai. a good portion of their traffic, it seems, comes from google. now, a good portion of a lot of folks' traffic comes from google. potentially so in this case or no in. >> potentially it's a little bit off -- a little bit higher percentage, but i don't look at -- just like you said, so many people rely on google, and so many companies rely on google. i don't think that's going to be the issue with reddit. they've got to fight off their own demons. they have -- again, they have

such a strong demographic, and you can monetize that demographic. it's the perfect millennial. they have a certain trust factor with millennials that's incredibly strong. with finance, they have a little bit of an edge over other social media sites or other social media companies in the same space, so i kind of like them, you know, in that regard. >> what do you think about the prospect of certain moderators and users buying in? there's three classes of shares. let's talk about that. for some people, that's work. i'm thinking of airbnb and other companies that have done other kinds of things. you look at robinhood as an example. >> personally i like it. you have to think about reddit. they rely on their moderators they're a certain part of their ecosystem, and i think allowing them to participate in the ipo

and getting skin in the game, it's super important. i think it's a really brilliant idea by them. >> when you think, though, of the history of these types of efforts, it hasn't -- it's worked for some. it has. worked for others. >> that's true. that's true. but i think in reddit's case, we haven't seen a lot of ipos, andrew, where the whole platform relies on those moderators, and they essentially do it for free, right? you've got to throw back something. i think it's more of a show of good faith in the case of reddit than it is a pr move. >> how many people are going to buy it just because they love reddit? >> you know, we're seeing -- so for online brokerages like tastee and most people in our

space, we don't participate in the ipos. we're seeing what i think is a lot of interest already. on what are the options that can be listed and how long will it take? i think it will be an interesting stock because people likeinexpensive social media stocks and there's not much out there other than snapchat. meta is just too expensive. i think that fits into the very tradeable, very investable price. >> tom, i'm going to play this back. i got a lot of feedback the other day. it seems like one of the main conundrums that a platform faces is writing is hard.

trying to come up with clever things to say, it's hard to say things the way a video or photo does. trying to put these in the category as some of the other social media platforms that rely largely on images and video. >> it's a great question, but it makes me a little sad. on the one hand, we don't want to just become, you know, a society of just short video clips as much as i love tiktok. >> i agree with you, tom. it's just that it's hard to find people who want to sit there and type. >> i agree. but you know what? we still -- i think when you look at twitter, what elon has done to twitter and what's happened since he bought that out, i think what it's done is it's essentially normalized price. it's taken the market down to a level where i do think it's investable.

it's probably fair. at $12 billion or $15 billion, it's probably fair. i think we have found a representing area. i think it's okay. i sth e we need sites like this. >> tom, appreciate it. thank you for joining us this morning. see you soon. coming up, wharton professor jeremy siegel will talk markets, inflation, and much more. we'll be right back. ♪♪ [storms sound]

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we'll get into that and so much more as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. we're live at the market site at times square. i'm andrew ross sorkin. joe kernen. becky is off. the s&p 500 off close to 4 points. the treasury mark, 4.24. among today's top business stories, warren buffett's berkshire hathaway reporting a big rise in operating earnings in the fourth quarter. that's thanks to gains in the

company's insurance operation. growing to a record $167 billion. what's he going to do with that firepower? well, in his annual letter to shareholders, buffett said his huge size left no possibility for what he calls a, quote, eye-popping performance at this point, also suggesting there weren't companies out there, at least in the u.s. -- well, none abroad, he said. but in the u.s., that there are very few companies that can actually move the needle for berkshire hathaway. a little bit to chew on there. he gave a very important tribute in there to charlie munger that's worth reading. >> i think the return of the geico caveman is responsible for the very right-hand side of that chart. >> i'm afraid to say. >> he's back on a lot of the ads. >> i'm afraid to say geico's

performance is -- >> is a problem? >> i would. say -- >> it's a counterfactual. >> on a relative basis to what's happened with progressive. they've been an underperformer in the past several years, there's no question about that, and progressive, which has been the underperformer has really -- i don't want to say they're sweeping the league, but they're doing a lot better. a lot of customers who were geico customers have moved to become progressive. >> that's flow. >> that's a real issue. >> do you know who i'm talking about? >> i know flo rida. >> flo is the sister and has been making appearances and you have the geico caveman. the gecko lizard says he works so hard.

the latest, the kievman said, really? if it's as easy thaz a caveman can do it, why can't you do it? meantime domino's pizza, the company beat profit estimates but slightly missed on the top line. u.s. same-store sales coming in above target and had a $1 billion bump in its share buyback plan. don't miss an exclusive interview with the ceo of domino's this afternoon at lunchtime on cnbc. i'm already hungry. it's at 2:30 eastern. i hope they deliver. >> it's tomorrow night for us. meantime amazon beating walgreen boots alliance in the dow jones industrial average. that's happening today. the change was prompted by walmart's three for one stock

split resulting in a lower index weight for it. uber joining as well. you don't usually get the bump on the day of, but we'll see. we'll see. >> let's get back to the broader markets and bring in our own senior markets commentator, mark santoli, for his senior moments of the day. hey, mike. >> yeah, joe. i was away for the week, but a similar story for the s&p 500, which has an incredibly persistent rally. it was a strong january. november and december too. this goes back to september 30th of 2022 because that's the low right there of what was a relatively brief and not so punishing bear market in 2022. what i do find interesting continually is we're riding the upper end of that entire trend

from the low. at some point we should take a break. we have a little bit of a buying panic. obviously earnings have come in better than expected. the question is how much is reflected. look at the rest of the world. it's kind of interesting there's some focus on u.s. stocks starting to perform etter. excluding the u.s., it's just nosed above what's been almost a two-year range. it looks like a lot of domestic sectors as well. it's pretty much what the financial sector looks like. it's somewhat similar to what small caps look like. the rest of the world is starting to show some life, nosing above the ceiling of the prior range but not really resembling the s&p 500 where you have all that momentum. talking about berkshire hathaway, an amazing performance. the insurance business in general in the market has been very strong.

it's really an extension and reflection of the bid for quality stocks. quality as a factor with strong balance sheets and high profit margins, things like that. berkshire is really tracking this quality factor etf. and you have the quality apple. it's really not helping out. it's about half of berkshire's equity portfolio but really has not been much of a contributor in the last several weeks. in particular, you see this sort of x pattern where it's starting to outperform apple. of course, many people mentioning they didn't have much of a role in warren buffett's letter this time around. >> walmart's $58 now. $58.52. >> yeah. it feels like a decent excuse just to get amazon. it's hard to ignore the economic heft of amazon. they've wanted to capture the

basic u.s. economy as best as possible, so this seems to be a pretty good kind of cover story to get amazon in there now that they've already been willing to have things like stocks that don't pay a dividend in there as well. >> all right. thank you. mike santoli. >> for more on the markets and all the record-highs we've been seeing, i want to bring in jeremy siegel. he's with the wharton school of business. you've been a longtime bull, but the truth is there have been moments where you've pulled back or told folks hesitate. where are you now, professor? >> well, i still think the momentum is there. make the trend your friend. go with the flow. i mean, we're selling it 20 times forward earning, which i think is quite reasonable. the tech stocks are 30 or plus. the rest of the market is 16. so, you know, there's a lot of

stocks that are quite reasonable if you don't think the tech will continue itself movement upward. overall the momentum is still positive, and i'm still positive on the market. >> the segaleing -- see seeing segel family is doing what? >> certainly i wish i put everything in nvidia. you said warren buffett said nothing much could move the needle. if he had nvidia, he could have moved the needle. certainly the momentum in some of those stocks might be beginning. i look back at the '99, '98, 2000. the first was cisco.

it was supposed to be the first billion dlarl stock. cisco was selling at 120 times earnings in early 2000. my goodness, if nvidia ever got to that valuation, it would be at $3,000 a share. now, i'm not making that prediction. i'm just telling you how crazy things can go. >> nvidia. >> nvidia. >> you were right that the market was going to keep going up. what you were wrong about was the economy. you were sure the fed was way too tight, needed to cut, the economy was slowing much more drastically than anticipated, and a lot of people -- i thought the same thing -- that was not the case. >> well, and that was the case a year ago. when scb failed, i thought, oh,

my god. i was looking at the data saying, hey, the economy is getting through these interest rates. and then i became much more bullish on what the economy is going to do and backed off from any recession probability. yeah, i was definitely that way a year ago, but i pivoted last summer, and i still see that strength despite the interest rates that the fed has had and see that strength into 2024. >> and any rate cuts ever? >> i think the market is almost like who's afraid of the big bad fad? i think there will be rate cuts because i still think inflation ison a downward trend. i think we had somewhat of an anomaly in january. i think we're going to get better cpi numbers for the month of february, but the truth of the matter is, you know, the

economy is surviving these rates, like you said. rates have almost doubled its gdp forecast. i agree with it. in fact, it could be 2.5% this year. so as long as the economy remains strong, there is no hurry for the fed to lower those interest rates. i think that's the bottom line. >> does that mean you think we can go the whole year without anything? that's sort of a jamie dimonesque sort of posture. at one point he said they could raise rates. >> i don't think they will raise rates. we'll convince them to be on hold. sit possible they won't lower rates this year? yes, that is possible. it's not my baseline projection, but, you know, as i look at all the real data, you know, i don't see any real slowdown yet.

but i don't see -- i'll tell you why i don't see the inflation. since the commodity industries are going down on a down trend or flat, that is not an inflationary trend. >> so we're walking into an election year here, and there is a view, and if you look at some of the charts historically, it could be that once you hit summertime -- in fact, one of our guests last week made this point -- you do get into a bit of a volatile situation. there are some who think once you hit the summer, things can get more complicated. are you of that view? >> historically the terms are the best. the fourth is urinal li good, but, andrew, i think you'll agree with me. this is going to be a presidential year like none other. to try to say what has happened in the last 20 30rks years is likely to repeat this year, i

think, is perhaps stretching it. there could be surprises with any candidate. >> does that not just add to the uncertainty if that's true? >> i think it adds to the uncertainty. the truth of the matter is that at the present time, i don't think that the market is all that concerned who is going to be president between biden and trump, between those two candidates. remember four years ago we had bernie sanders in the mix. the market was very concerned about that being a socialist coming into the presidential race, but, you know, both biden and trump -- there's pluses and minuses. they both call themselves capi capitalists. in fact, they both call themselves pro-market people, which i have not seen both sides

of the ail. >> professor, great to see you. i'm sure we'll talk to you again very, very soon. norfolk southern is planning to nominate two new board candidates amid activist battle. one is former ceo richard anderson and former senator and friend of "squawk box," heidi heitkamp. the "journal" reporting that they plan to wage a campaign to shake up the board and replace ceo allen shaw. andrew, andrew? >> what are you doing? >> trying to get the fly. >> we have a fly in the ointment and the show. i've named him joe.

>> because he's so annoying? coming up, shutdown -- and why do you think the fly likes to land on you so much? time ticking down on funding. what's on lawmakers' to-do list before the weekend and how the market takes on the congressional game of chicken. next, what's going wrong and what needs to go right at warner bros. diovy.scer stay tuned for that. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

coming off a nearly 10% drop on friday, the media company repo reporting quarterly results decline. joining us now on the company and the challenges facing the ceois the former nbc cable president and cnbc contributor. we know david. we worked with david. you worked with him for years and years and years, tom. he doesn't like it when stocks

don't go up. he's used to that at discoverry and has done so well there. there are realities of this business that i'm not sure anyone knows exactly what to do and how to make stocks go up at this point. >> well, it's in a tough position, joe, and, you're right. there's no clear playbook as to how traditional media companies can play this environment. look. david's proved they know how to take out costs and got some help from the various strikes in terms of being able to take out costs more. they've proved they can delever, using the cash flo they're generating to pay down debt. however, how much and by when has been stretched out some. the big question hanging over the company is can it grow, and that's a big question. they got really hit on advertising revenue.

the networks particularly domestically, according to brian, who's probably the best advertising analyst out there. it looks like an 18% decline on domestic network ad revenues. that's very, very tough to make up, and it looks like it's going to continue along that vein. and then their direct to consumer streaming stuff is really obscure. they put traditional hbo, cable sat lellite streaming numbers a out there. they put headlines out there, they're the first to hit profitability on their direct to consumer operations, but, again, that's with traditional hbo in there, and even with that, they lost money in the fourth quarter on all that. so the question is how do they prove they can grow, and that's what is very unclear. >> in terms of -- i don't know

what we're calling it. some people have suggested trifecta for that sports streaming. out of the three entities involved, does warner brothers need to do it -- warner brothers discovery need to do it more than the other two players? >> well, what they really need is to get the nba reviewed. if that doesn't get done, they can't come together. that's a central ingredient with that part of the club. it's unclear to me that they necessarily win this. i think comcast, nbc has some interest there. nbc has a broadcast network, and i think the reach for professional sports leagues of a broadcast network continues to have major appeal.

so i'm not sure if they don't win that that the j.v.act materializes. if they don't, the hit revenue is going to hugely decline. that's a must situation for them. if it comes together, i think there's a better argument to be made. >> when would sosnoff have to decide he would do something really big? >> april is the time. the spin-off, they could. do it. >> i think breaking up the company, tom, the taxes are a real tough issue, no? >> yes, that's a tough scenario.

look, i think there are two players that have a lot of eleven raj over warner bros. discovery. one i was saying was the nb a. i think it has enormous leverage in those discussions. and secondly, comcast nbc. if there's going to be a mega merger, that's far more likely than warper and paramount getting together. . but i think brian has most of the cards there in terms of if and when that's going to happen. i can't see that it's necessarily in their interest to do anything soon. so it's really a question of growth. i think the time may be coming that they have to own up to whether renaming the streaming srd max was the best idea here. they lost two million streaming subs year over year. they lost half a million

domestic streaming subs in the fourth quarter. i think there's a lot of indication in terms of pure engagement, despite all the emmys that they win, there's still a percentage of television time where they if need to get much more above that. so was that the right move? is hbo still synonymous with quality, and should they be moving back in a direction which lights that up for people who really want to look to it as the place to go for major streaming television? >> the numbers don't really add up. i guess it's the magnificent 7 that have the market cap. you look at comcast. that's at 64. it was at 41. look at warner bros. discovery. disney is at 207. where did the market cap go? netflix was over 700.

it's not even there. where is it? media is a great business. where the hell is the -- where the's the star? >> well, netflix is the star clearly. yes, it's below, high, but it's continuing to decline since it's hit its low and it's clearly set itself from the rest of the pack. it's hu i will i profitable, generating massive cash flow, able to maintain major programming budgets on the streaming side and it has an international game, another area where warner brothers has got its hands tied behind its back because in the uk and italy, it. i would say it's i got to continue to shine while others continue to struggle.

>> okay. if it's not a cable bundle, it's streaming. it's neither. what is it, tom? >> well, i do think bundling, joe, is an answer here. warner and netflix are in a $10 bundle through verizon. i'm not sure it's a critical -- i'm sure it's a max. it's a $10 bundle through verizon. if i were warner, i would look to bundle with everything i possibly can. yes, the jv sports bundle probably works better for them in that regard than the others, but bundling to get the price down, get distribution up, it's all about getting major scale. it's very hard to do it on your own. if you can put together synthetic bundles with other services that make it attractive from a price point of view to really add that to your repertoire of what you have in

the home, i think that's a major tool, and i think that would be used far more than it is with today with a couple companiesin. it should be much more than that. >> that strike was bad. there's nothing to watch, andrew. have you seen that capote thing? the capote feud? >> on fx? >> on fx. hulu. >> tom, what are you i'm finis. i don't have anything yet. >> kind of like a lot of stars. good to see you. thanks. >> thanks. >> what do you have? nothing at the moment? >> nothing at the moment. >> you've just got wide-legged

pants. >> i'm in the fashion world. coming up, why is byd putting out an ev wallet-buster? we've got pictures of the challenger and lamborghini. you're going to want to see it.

welcome back to "squawk box." berkshire hathaway says it's threat threatening. doj threatens to sue their

pacificorp. pacificorp says it's cooperating to resolve things including through alternative means. we'll see what those alternative means means. coming up, potential pit falls. will the government get things done before the shutdown? we'll get you up to speed on the latest in washington. an important programming note. don't miss an exclusive interview with jpmorgan chase's ceo jamie dimon from miami beach. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. billy idol? i mean where's the skin-tight leather? my shoes are leather. where's the unnecessary zippers? that thing! billy, rock star is just how doug feels when he uses workday. thanks, rory. i'll show you rock star! be a finance and hr rock star. workday. for a changing world. billy idol just stole your golf cart!

the government just days away from a potential government, yes, i could have said this like ten other times in the last year and a half, emily. but this time it's for real. emily wilkins joins us now with the state of negotiations in washington. what's going to happen, emily? >> good morning, joe. well, yeah, congress is once again heading toward a partial shutdown midnight on sunday. this could result in things like

fewer air traffic controllers, fewer food inspections and fewer grants for farmers. they had hoped to release the detailed funding trends this weekend. they're close. chuck schumer said last night the republicans are still debating what they need to see in the bill. the hard-line conservatives have pushes. schumer said it's his, quote, sincere hope that speaker johnson will step up to once again bump the speextremists ins caucus and do the right thing. johnson went on his statement to say this is not the time for petty politics, and house republicans will continue to work in good faith and hope to reach an outcome as soon as possible. they're all going to be meeting with president biden on tuesday

to try and hash this one out. of course, there is the chance that they could once again kick that can down the road, but, remember, kind of the big looming deadline is the end of april where you're going to see some sort of 1% cut go into effect under the current framework. andrew? >> emily, thank you for that. joining us right now for more on the fight over the government funding as well as this weekend's south carolina primary win for former president trump, donna edwards and jeb who served with the house finance com committee. i'll start with you. what does it portend for not the republican party, per se, but for the general election, in fact? >> well, i think for the primary, it's going to set a match to president trump. if i was for his campaign, i

would be somewhat concerned. you soo e in several primaries where significant portions of the republican primary have voted against the de facto republican incumbent president. there's a lot of kissing and making up once the nominee is decided. but in this case, you see a lot of polling data where a number of republicans are just going to stay home. so when president trump announces to everybody that if you give money to nikki haley, you're going to be on his permanent bad list, you're not building a political movement by southbound traction. you have to build it by addition. i think, again, there are some worrisome signs for president trump. otherwise i would say there's a 98%, 99% chance he's going to be the republican nominee. >> donna, way tomt get to the funding issues in washington. your reaction to what happened

in south carolina. he talked about some of the problems for the former president. there are a lot of people who think it portends a problem for the current president. >> look, i do think jeb is right about this. i listened to donald trump's speech on saturday and he didn't say anything that was about bringing his party together and sort of unifying now that he's pretty much going to seal up the nomination, so i think it's going to make it very difficult for those voters to come on board. look, i think this is still going to be a very competitive generale election. we all know that. i think for president biden, he has really, you know, pretty much consolidated the democratic party. he does have some challenges when it comes to response on the israel/hamas war, but i think that their goal is to try to wrap that up, and he's got some challenges communicating his economic success so people are feeling that at home as they go into the voting booth in

november. >> okay. so layer on top of that what may be a government shutdown between now and then. who gets the credit, who gets the blame? >> keep in mind there was a spending deal that was made last spring that was abandoned by the house gop. i think that's challenging at this point. also on the supplemental, they had a deal on border security and they've abandoned that. i think this chaos in the republican party is hard to see how this gets pulled out. now we're facing a partial government shutdown at the end of the week. so the challenge for speaker johnson is he can't look at his

caucus on the spending bill. i think that will continue to be a challenge no matter how much negotiation takes place between the senate and the white house. >> hey, janessa web, what's the? >> he has a lot of creditlet with people in the freedom caucus and the broader house republican congress. i think they're shellshocked from what happened when speaker mccarthy was relieved, shall we say, from his pitcher's mound. if i can go back to the point donna was making when you asked about the shutdown, i think it's important to remember two members of the freedom caucus have publicly said they're willing to accept a continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year. i mean, let's face it. we're already four months into this fiscal year. this is a change. if they do that, they may miss

outed on what we call policy riders, and they would love to see policy riders dealing with a porous border. but at the same time, under a deal that was struck previously, they'll see $100 billion in savings over the current base like should they do that. if you ask who's going to get the blame for the shutdown. if you end up with a continuing resolution the democrats don't support, in that case, democrats will have shutdown on their hands. >> i want to go back to donna separately and see whether these things all get connected up. when you start to think about issues around the border and some of the comments that former president trump and others about not actually fixing those situations, who's going to get the blame there? >> look, it's really clear there was a negotiates deal in the senate on border security, and president biden actually made a lot of concessions that some democrats, frankly, were not

happy with but would have gone along with, and republicans, because of donald trump in the house, rejected that. and so even as they were demanding border security, they got border security and then they walked away from border security. so i think it's hard to argue that, you know, this is real, and that president trump isn't playing a dirty hand here. >> did president trump say don't do it and everybody got in line or was it a bad deal? compared with the number coming in, a lot of republicans said, . they're still allowing for way too many people to come in. i know lankford put the deal together, but would you have voted yes for that deal? >> number one, i reserve the right to vote back on that. i want to go back to what donna

said. there's not ha law that necessarily has to be passed there. it was night and day how the border was secured by president trump. so much rests on executive authority. it's clear that president biden has paid little to no attention on the southern border where we have the united nations basically. coming across the feel. we don't know who they are. so finally the president, president biden, was forced to act, but he could do this on his own. there doesn't have to be a new law for him to simply even force. they won. he repealed. all the executive orders of president trump on the border. listen, there's no doubt in my mind come election day he's going to get blamed for the crisis at the border. it's going to be president biden. >> i've got to leave it there. i know the debate will continue. i'm sure we'll do it together again. thank you very, very much.

before we head to break, i roy. to tell you about breaking news. broadcom is setting its remote access unit to kkr for approximately $4 billion. the company's ceo has been working on it. that happened in november. coming up -- that's what we would have seen. broadcom, symbol avgo. coming up, putting out an ev car that has no chance. "squawk box" will be right back. and experiences for hundreds of thousands of fans with reliable 5g connectivity. now's the time to accelerate your business.

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battle at disney. blackwell's capital calling for disney to come up with an artificial intelligence strategy saying that that could lift the stock price. the activist campaigning for three board seats at disney, and that battle is separate, we should mention, from the proxy battle taking place by nelson peltz's trian fund. the world's top ev maker, china's byd, unveiling what it's calling a pure electric super car. the model is priced at more than $233,000. phil lebeau calls it a conversation starter. let's bring in phil. what do you make of this car? sounds right up your alley, phil. >> it is a conversation starter. joe, are we going to see this car any time soon in the united states or outside of china? probably not.

and frankly, you're not going to see many in china. they've unveiled it. it's going to take some time to bring this to production. i do chuckle. online, you hear people saying, it's a ferrari competitor. let's be clear here. ferrari is in a different category for a whole bunch of reasons in terms of desirability, the limited number of vehicles that are built, the fact that they have a built-in demand, if you will. this is a super car in price only. now, if it ultimately develops into a must-have among the world of super car owners, then it's a different story, but at this point, it is a conversation starter. that's all it is at this point. >> the news of the day, again, "wall street journal," front page, has that -- i know you probably saw it -- that bar chart, and the story later in the paper, cooling demand puts electric car start-ups in a bind. i think everybody's in a bind.

so, it used to be -- and it points out, used to be they couldn't build them fast enough. if we could build them fast enough, we could sell them. now they're building them just fine. they just can't sell them. we're not going to be ready -- all those fears that we keep talking about, that all of us have, all the anxieties that come with an ev, is there enough money around for these start-ups to last until we get those problems solved in terms of infrastructure and battery life and all that stuff? i mean, you only have so much money before -- and i don't even know if the big three -- do they have enough time with all the money they're blowing on this kind of stuff? they're eventually going to have a day of reckoning too. >> the big three are not going away. >> i know, but it's a lot of money in a black hole. >> you're absolutely right. look, that's the argument that you have heard in the last six months to nine months. why are you spending as much as you are spending on evs when

some of that should, a, either be pared back, which they have now done, or b, bring that back to shareholders, which they have also done, and since they've made those decisions, you've seen the shares do a little bit better. they're not off to the races. the big three shares really haven't in some time. though stellantis did hit an all-time high about a week, week and a half ago. as for the start-ups, we'll find out, joe, if they do have the money to make it to, let's say, three years from now. we talked with rj from rivian. you heard that conversation. he essentially said, look, we think that we have the means to get to the r2 production in 2026. they also have amazon as a primary investor. so it's not like these guys have nobody who can back them up if they need to go to the capital markets again, but what happens with other companies like fisker? we'll get their earnings report or financials for the fourth quarter later this week. lucid has the saudi arabian investment fund that is backing them. so, we'll find out.

>> yeah. exactly. you couldn't even say it with a straight face. you had to qualify it when you said we'll get their earnings. >> joe, joe, don't forget. we're in chile later this week. china's auto revolution. it's all about the exported chinese vehicles, not just electric vehicles, all vehicles. and we will show you some things that will make you say, wow, now i see what's going on around the world when it comes to china exporting their vehicles. >> i did forget that. so, thank you for reminding me. we'll look forward to it, phil. thank you. "squawk box" will be right back. trading at schwab is now powered by ameritrade, giving traders even more ways to sharpen their skills with tailored education. get an expanding library filled with new online videos, webcasts, articles, courses, and more - all crafted just for traders. and with guided learning paths stacked with content curated to fit your unique goals, you can spend less time searching and more time learning.

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little more than half an hour to the opening bell on wall street. joining us now, sylvia jablonski from defiance etfs. i think we're going to get some inflation data this week, sylvia. do you need some cooler numbers to get really bullish right now? are you okay with what we saw that kind of threw a wrench in the works a couple weeks ago? >> good morning, joe. well, i think the mood of the market is going to be dependent on some of the data that comes out this week. we know that core pce is one of

the favored measurements by the fed and what we get there, that 0.4%, it's going to be hotter than the 0.2%, but you have some seasonality there, so i think investors understand that. if it's hotter than that, we get some selloffs, but if it's in line, the mood continues, and i think you get some bullish sentiment into the market. i remain bullish. i don't care what happens. i care what happens over time. i don't necessarily care what happens this week on that number. >> is there anything more important than it's an election year? that's kind of an overriding factor, is it not? it just historically seems to be. >> yeah, i think the fact that it's an election year, i mean, that often bodes well for markets, so i think you're going to get some volatility in the markets because of the fact that it is an election year. what's more important than that is what we were just talking about. i think the fed is kind of number one, whether or not we get rate cuts this year, i think

geopolitics are a huge issue. we have to see what happens between china and taiwan. we have to see what happens in the middle east, russia, ukraine, kind of the ongoing spending that goes into all of this, too, so those are the potential black swans that could come out of nowhere, but overall, the economy is strong. the consumer is spending. there's a lot of cash on the sidelines, a lot of liquidity that could come back into the marketplace, so as long as we have a kind of reasonable election year and the data remains positive, the fed gives us those three cuts, i think we're in a good spot. >> it's all kind of related. it's tough to stay really, really tight if you're the fed during an election year. i mean, no one wants to be accused of, you know, political concerns. but more often than not, you don't want to err on the side of keeping rates too high, so maybe that portends well for some cuts later this year. >> yeah, i think so. and if we get those cuts -- well, i think if we don't get the cuts, then all bets are off, and you're going to start to see

the market pull back a bit. if we get those three cuts at this stage, i think that's great for the market, helps small caps to rally, keeps up the growth rally too. >> okay, sylvia. good to have you on at the beginning of the week on a monday. i know we'll see you again soon. >> that was fun, my friend. >> did you just call me sorky? >> is that okay? >> i've called you other things. >> yeah, you have. you have. you can't say here. make sure you join us tomorrow. ♪ good monday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer. david faber is back at post nine of the new york stock exchange. futures steady coming off the 13th record close for the s&p this year and the best week since mid-january. packed schedule this week, pce deflator, fed speak, earnings and software. nvidia shares climbing once again ahea