it's 5:00 a.m. at your cnbc headquarters and here is your "five@5." why two top market watchers say the win streak is likely about to get cut short. also alphabet under pressure over its gemini ai issues we'll call them. this morning the ceo is calls the missteps unacceptable, but they may not be enough for our jim cramer. his hot take is coming up. also apple taking the exit ramp when it comes to its

self-driving car ambitions and why that may actually be good news for the stock. plus hong kong looks to get its property sector back on the right foot and its investor happy to go along for the ride. shares of bumble sink as we go to the open. it's wednesday, february 28th, 2024, and you're watching "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc. ♪ good morning. welcome to "worldwide exchange." i'm frank holland. we're going to kick off this hour with a check of u.s. stock futures after a bit of a mixed day for stocks that saw the dow close lower but the s&p and nasdaq finished very slightly higher. right now you can see red across the board. it looks like the tow could open at 145 points lower. nasdaq is the hardest hit, down over a half a percent. at least 46 s&p 500 stocks are trading at 52-week highs or a

all-time highs with big tech or communication services. take a look at some of the names. we're talking about ross stores, ulta beauty, tractor supply, volcan materials. russell 2000 is coming off its first full day of the year. take a look at the chart. small caps up almost 1.5% year to date, but you can see right now moving higher in the premarket. we'll have much more on small caps? just a minute. take a look at the yields. the 10-year note, we've seen it move 25 basis points since the start of february. we'll continue to watch that and talk about the impact of higher rates on the markets. and this morning we also want to talk oil. we start with wti, the u.s. benchmark down 1.08%. bartend crude at $82.85 a barrett, down about 1% as well.

let's get a check of some of this morning's top corporate stories with our sill vai nahe now. good morning. >> good morning. pichai called biased ai completely unacceptable. in a note to google employees late yesterday pichai adding, quote, no ai is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of this industry's development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes. and we're watching shares of unitedhealth, rate now down a little over 1%, this following reports the justice department has launched an antitrust investigation into the company and its focus. unitedhealth is the largest u.s.

health insuring commercial markets and medicare advantage with 14% and 28% market share respectively. and tesla's ceo elon musk says-i new electric roadster sports car will start shipping as soon as next year. in a post to x, musk adds tesla has radically increased designs for the roadster ahead of the release. musk first announced a battery-powered four-seat sports car at the end of 2017 with an original launch date in 2020, frank. >> silvana, thank you very much. we're going to turn our attention back to the broader market and in spite of the market, major averages were on track for four months in a row. coming off its four-session win streak of the year and about to close out its third positive

month in the last four. the question, is that a sign of a changing market when it comes to leadership or is it a term shift? we bring in craig sof piper sandler. your new note, are we topping out or broadening out. i ooh'll ask you. are those the only two options? >> that's a great question. right now looking at it, the technical answer is yes. whether it's the dow, s&p, or nasdaq, you can see off after the big run off of the 2023 lows we're now pressing to the upper end of a very well established 18-month price channel, and, frank, this is not where you start the next leg up. you don't do that at the upper end of the channel frankly.

we need to see it broaden out. health care is expanding. right now the breadth of the market has been steadily contracting throughout all of 2024. >> you're saying two things it should broaden out and then you're juxtaposing. we have 46 s&p companies, close to 10% of the index close to a 52-week or all-time high. isn't that the broadening you say we need for the markets to move higher? >> it's a good start, frank, but we need to see bigger participation in financials. we need to see a bigger participation in health care, the reason being those are some of the biggest parts of the russell 2000,which is a much broader index than the s&p 500 index itself. and when you sum all of these pieces up, frank, it's not

enough to really say we can start that next leg up yet. so our view has been for this entire year, this is a market that's probably going to enter an hltr or high level trading range. now is the time where this market is vulnerable to see at least a 10% correction and that's what we tend to expect will come. >> you say a 10% correction. you see the market pulling back to as low as 4600. i also want to ask you about some additions to one of your funds. you're adding ibm and disney to the piper sandler technical opportunities funds. what are they telling you about the two stocks? >> what they're telling you, if you look at ibm specifically, it's breaking out to a 4-year high, a much bigger picture than what you're seeing with apple at this point in time while they're taking an exit ramp on the auto business. it's picking up benefits from ai.

they're consulting in other pieces. the last one, frank, is disney. >> frcraig, i'm going to jump i. disney hasn't performed. we had a former disney cfo trying to join the board saying you have actually lost money on disney for the last three years on almost, i think it with us 90% of the days if you had put money in. >> absolutely, but at this point in time if you come back and look at the weekly chart at disney, it's starting to bottom out and the relative strength is starting to improve. while there's been a lot of negatives, it looks like it's starting to change. perhaps the management is starting to change. but it looks like it's bottomed out and now's the time you want to step up. when people don't like it, this is when you want to step up and buy some of the high-quality blue chip stocks, frank. >> you're removing apple from the opportunities fund. craig, always good to see you. your price target remains at

50-50, but we're seeing a pull back to 4600. a lot more to come to "worldwide exchange." that includes the one word investors have to know today. but first the ceo of qualcomm is talking about how he's keeping a leg up on the aimt and smartphone space and what if anything this company can do to right its reputation with consumers and maybe more importantly investors. later, we have the number one metric you need toat wch ahead of earnings. a very busy hour ahead when "worldwide exchange" returns. stay with us.

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take a look at u.s. futures. the hardest hit, down two-thirds of a percent. carolin roth in our london news room. carolin, good morning. >> good morning to you, frank. a bit of a patchy picture in europe. for most of this week european markets have been struggling for a direction. just to put this in perspective though, we're on track for a 2% gains for the fourth positive month in a row. take a look. the xetra dax hitting another record-high this morning. it's done that for the last five trading sessions. elsewhere we're seeing a little bit of red here. the ftse 1800 off by 2%.

reckitt beckiser is down due to a reduction in colds and flus. take a look, 0.2% for talco. vodafone is looking to sell its italian business to swisscom for up to 8 billion euros in cash. nothing like a good m & a story. back to you. >> carolyn, aocarolin, great to it's day three in barcelona. ai has been the hot topic to discuss their strategies to tap into that red-hot tech. arjun kharpal suffolk one of the ceos earlier and joins us now.

ar arjun, good to see you. >> reporter: i've braved the crowds here. really it's about ai on devices. now, just to unpack, that typically we've had ai on the phones. often it's coming from the cloud. you're using some ai feature, download it on your device now. they talk about it being on devices. fast and secure. how it's going to be powered, chips, of course, one of the big players behind me, qualcomm. i had a chance to catch up with cristiano amon, the ceo of qualcomm to talk about the de device. take a listen. >> we're on the cusp of an ai revolution. that's what we're betting. you're starting to see some very compelling use cases.

>> qualcomm is betting that in the future our devices, whether it's a phone or something else, will effective will i be a personal assistant to us. i was in the qualcomm booth just moments ago. i saw a very cool demo that was about the size of a cookie and had an ai chip in it. you could ask it questions. it could take video and all sorts of stuff. that's a vision they have. they become your personal assistants to book your hotel, your flight, whatever it is. >> one thing i'm trying to process what size is the cookie. here in the u.s., we've got really big cookies. cristiano amon is talking about cool tech. what is it you're seeing when it comes to ai phones, and things

are cheating up when it comes t smart rings. >> two things. i've seen a lot of demos. i want to show you. there was a feature on a phone from a company in china where you looked at it and it tracked your eyes. they were showing a lot of the features on their device with their cameras, with the ability to search. they showed off their smart ring for the first time, the galaxy ring. i had a look at it. they're betting big on the health category, with the smartphone, the smart watch, the ring, it can give you all types of insights into their data, and that can unlock new business for samsung as well. finally the other topic is the innovation, yes, around ai and on phones, but also what does the future phone look like. there's been a lot of talk about screens. we talked about a screen that could wrap around your wrist that was another device i saw where the actual screen opened

up into something bigger as well. a lot of experimentation, innovation happening on the screen front. around these companies you see around me are trying do just that, to reinvigorate what's been a tough smartphone market in the past couple of years, frank. >> our arjun kharpal. i know it was a big day because you've got the turtleneck on. coming up on "worldwide exchange." investoring areswiping left on bumble, opting for rivals in okg heloinat t year ahead. we'll have that story and the big "money movers" coming up after the break.

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ameriprise financial. advice worth talking about. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." it's time now for your big "money movers," three stock stories of the morning. i'm going to start with stocks of ebay, almost up 3%. however, guidance came in much better than analysts expected. it's also raising its dividend and buying back $2 billion in shares. that stock is on track to close out its best month in january after lagging over the month. urban outfitters under pressure. all missing estimates, though it says positive outcomes to positive sales growth. the pull back in shares follows o a 40% gain.

bumble set to open up at an all-time low after a loss and weak guidance. the dating app is cutting jobs or nearly 40% of its work force. shares of bumble right now down almost 9%. shhong kong property stocks list after they've been in place for more than a decade. property struggle's a key factor for china's ongoing economic data as well. our eunice yoon getting a first look at one city serving as a prime example of that crisis. eunice, over to you. >> reporter: thanks, frank. you probably have never heard of

this city. as we found out this week, property markets might be a lot to ask for. thinking of buying a home in china? maybe not this one. this house development was built in 2011 where most of the buildings like this have never been occupied. as you can see, they're not maintained. rear, apartments are everywhere. 600 of 900 of these units, half out of the near 800 in this other. >> also apartments like this are all over the country and waiting on the economy. developers hoped that more people would move from the countryside to the cities and prefer a home near the town, but it was bypassed as buyers chose apartments closer to shanghai and because of the graph uc

decline, their population is flat lining at 7.7 million. it could take five years to find buyers for all of the unsold new apartments. what's wars, falling prices and job sales, it's worse. the fear is many of these homes will never sell and remain a burden on the real estate market. and, frank, some of the apartments are empty because people bought them as investments without ever intending on living in them. so the developments are really lonely. >> such a great story, eunice. i want to make sure i understand you correctly. they expect it to take three years to sell that apartment? three years? >> five years. and that's assuming that people are -- yeah, that's right. it was five years. and that's assuming people are

actually going to buy them because one of the big problems in that specific city and a lot of these little cities is the building is in some place that not a lot of people want to live in. and there's a population issue. in fact, it's one of the oldest -- the city with the oldest population in china. so you have just kind of a mismatch in the supply and demand and that's leading to this major problem. >> you know, for your a while here it was hard for a house to stay on the market in the u.s. for five days. incredible. eunice yoon, greatreporting as always. coming up on "worldwide exchange," why our jim cramer says afl fa bet should be more like apple if it has any hope of regaining the trust of consumers and investors. and first, a new documentary. how easy? we investigate in a new cnbc documentary "big shot: the

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stocks are facing another day of pressure twith increasing calls that a pullback is on the rise ahead. salesforce, will they catch up to rivals in one critical area and will it actually work. alphabet's ceo doing iowa damage control. jim cramer says they need to take a page out of apple's book. it's wednesday, february 28th, 2024. you're watching c "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." i'm frank holland. it was a bit of a mixed day for stocks yesterday. futures extending right across the board. looks like the dow would open up just about 125 points lower.

we also want to take a closer look at tech and the large cap nasdaq. palo alto down 2.25%. micron down, 2%. broadly we're seeing tech under some pressure. we're checking the bond market tomorrow ahead of the cpe report. look at the benchmark. 4.29 is the yield here. we've seen the benchmark 25 basis points higher this month. similar story for the long bond, often seen as a read on inflation expectations. it's also moved up 25 basis points in february. lastly but certainly not least, energy. we're looking at oil under heavy pressure. wti down over 1%, hitting its lows of the morning. brent crude down just about 1% as well. okay. that's your morning money setup. now we want to turn back to what could be one of your big "money movers" of the day. we're talking sails force.

it reports fourth quarter results after the close. the stock has outperformed its market by more than double and mega cap announcing a 1% work force reduction in late january. they're expecting a growth firefighter salesforce. operating margins, they also continue to be a key factor. a recent note from jeffries saying cost cutting. salesforce continues to trend below mega cap peers including microsoft and oracle. you can see the cap forces. adoption of ai products and the overall demand is very important to investors. analysts say their check shows strong adoption of data cloud. current remaining performance obligation. that number is also a read of future business. so a number above the guidance of 10%. that would demonstrate those trends are intact even after a

9% price increase late last year. sales force could be a big mover post earnings. shares have moved an average of 7%. let's talk about more of what to expect from the numbers. george is the founder and advises on a total of $8 billion. they own salesforce through various etfs. george, good morning. great to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> you're cautiously optimisopt. what are your expectations when it comes to the number and the call with ceo mark beniot. >> he's cut costs. they're up a little more. from here on out, he's got to show a lot of top line growth

and beat the street's expectations. he's got to pump that kind of aspiration to get it right in the middle of ai and have it grow at a rate that the street's going to behappy about. i think that's a pretty heavy lift. i think that's going to be hard to do that. this is a great company. is it a great stock for the next 12 months? i think it's harder from here on out. >> as i said, you're cautiously opti optimistic. it seems like you want to hold the stocks and continue to go on this ride with marc benioff. one way to look at it, the metric of demand going forward. the estimate or guidance is 10%. what are you looking for beyond just that number when it comes to the call and marc benioff is saying about customers deciding to adopt salesforces, or not to, or maybe pushing back on price? what are your expectations? >> i think the market is all

about momentum in terms of tactic and growth. they want to see momentum above and beyond what the street projections are for each particular quarter. that i want to-- they want to s. the companies trailing want to show the growth and momentum that make investors want to continue to buy the stock and continue to be optimistic. their projections and what they expect going forward have got to exceed the street, delight the street for the stock to keep going up. >> george, like a lot of analysts from jeffries, jp jpmorgan, everybody is focused on operating margin. the salesforce, it actually lags below a lot of its peers. how big of a deal is this going to be in this report? if a company's able to beat on revenue and earnings, is it still a big deal? >> they've made some progress here, frank, but they've got

more they could potentially do, but i think we're kind of on the margins at this point of how much additional profits they could make. they could make more and that would help their cost, but i think topline growth and what they say about ai and einstein are the biggest factors in terms of where the stocks go in the next three months. >> sticking with salesforce but you think it might be less going forward. good to have you. appreciate your insight. time for a check of some of this morning's top corporate stories. we've got silvana henao. she's back. >> i am back. congressional leaders expressing optimism they'll be able to avoid a shutdown about with saturday's midnight deadline fast approaching. senate majority leader chuck schumer saying yesterday's white house meeting with president biden turned tense at times over government funding and ukraine aid, but house speaker mike johnson says he believes both sides could reach an agreement despite facing pressure from

some house republicans. starbucks workers at the company's unionized cafes are set to receive an increase in pay. they announced the move saying they've found a constructive path forward in their standoff. starbucks announcing it would provide stores with credit card tipping. that's something that's been available in nonunion stores for more than a year. sam bankman-fried is receiving a much lighter sentence than the 100 years he initially received for stealing billions. in a court filing his lawyers argued that a roughly 5 to 6.5-year sentence would be appropriate. they argued most would get their funds back. >> thank you very much. we're going to turn our attention back to tech and the damage control back at alphabet and it ee all about its ai tool

with gemini. the alphabet ceo addressed the ai blupder. he added it's, quote, completely unacceptable and said they got it wrong. he's promising to make companywide changes to prevent similar incidents. alphabet lost 70 points in the market yesterday joining other stocks that are negative year to date. on last night's "mad money" jim cramer said alphabet needs to streamline like apple or even meta. >> the lousy performance of google is indeed the talk of the town. it's a laugher. there has to be a moment where they push through ee fishency. we find out how many layers aren't producing anything. and how many valuable franchises

do they have like the sunday nfl ticket. it's liable fallible. stop running as a skunksworks and start focusing on start making some money. >> skunkworks. you don't hear that very often. let's talk with a big technology founder. alex, it's good to see you. >> good morning, frank. >> i'm going to google skunkworks. right now when it comes to apple, give me a sense. how do you view them scrapping their plans to create a self-driving car. some people see it as, hey, this could have been the innovation people were looking for and possibly a culture-shifting product. and in others, some think they need to focus on ai and the headset and that's where the real growth is. where do you land? >> i think you have to read behind the headline for this one. of about, there are camps in the

product. why are there camps in the project? i think it's been a corporate issue that's held apple back from building an electric car or autonomous car. we're talking about a design-led process that in some cases had sensors that were required for autonomous driving very deep within the car and limiting their field of view because the car would look better, and they spent years on this, $10 billion according to some reports, and weren't able to come away with a product. to me, their inability to shift this thing is the real concerning thing. investors saying the car is off the table and they're going to focus on the secondary. what's going on inside apple? where does the culture fall short that it was unable to produce results here? >> one thing i wanted to ask about apple and then we'll turn our attention back to alphabet. i bounced this off of you. it's the afl-cio index funds. they're asking apple to prepare

a transparency report and disclose ethical guidelines that apple has adopted regarding the use of ai. what's your take on this? apple's actually asking shareholders to vote no on this because they're worried about revealing some of their competitive position. >> yeah. i think it's an important ask. we're going to start to see even more scandals around these ai generation tools because they spend so much time acting on their own, forming their own opinions. i think without transparency, it's going to be tough for users to trust the companies. apple trust is really the core thing that you're selling alongside obviously functional devices. so i think this is an important ask. i think we should see more companies come forward and be more transparent about the way that this stuff works. like you mentioned, i think apple is asking voters to turn it down. i don't think there's a lot of chance that this is going to pass, but maybe it will set off alarm bells inside apple where they say if they're going to

ship something, maybe there should be a transparency report. >> let's come full circle. i wanted to take you down the road to am. we've seen shareholders asking apple to reveal transparency, ethics. what do you think google has to do to regain that trust when it comes to not only customers but investors? stocks moved into the negative territory for the year following some of these issues. >> absolutely. well, they're talking internally about structural changes, right? i think that's important. what is going on in the process? it's not just the mistake itself, but it's the organization at issues that led us to this moment that google should really be concerned about. they have to figure out a better process. the best way to speak to investors and customers and users and employees is to ship some productless they can be proud of. we know they they have a modelle, gemini and gemini 1.5. that should be on par, which is

the model from openai. they have to show when the products come out that this model is good and these mistakes that they've made in the recent past have really done a disservice to google in terms of its opportunity and ability to show us that it has the product chops to put it alongside the openais for instance and really factor it in. >> some of these were quite controversial, alex. i want to ask you referring to the request at the apple shareholder meeting. does alphabet need to release a report, creating more transparency? how are their tools coming up with these results, what's going on, and who's involved with these processes? >> their job was getting you from point a to point b in the most efficient way possible and satisfying some curiosity. right now what they're doing is

suggesting the whole web like conservational ai or when it comes to ai bots. you didn't need the transparency. all the action was happening on the web itself. now the action is happening within iowa. if google gets away with not telling us how the algorithm works or failing in the past, it needs to tell us now. it's important to succeed going forward is to maintain trust with people by being super transparent with how things work. they came up short this week. that might be one of the things they do today. coming up on "worldwide exchange," the bullish call on constellation energy, giving that stock juice ahead of the open. shares up almost 1 7. first we have a bold set of big "money movers." "virgin galactic," shares down more than 6%.

the space company says topline growth was driven by commercial flights and membership fees. lemonade posting a narrower than expected loss. you can see shares down more than 14%. the stocks also nearly 90% off of its awltime highs. and boston beer shares, they're falling flarkts revenues decreasing due to significantly lower volumes. "worldwide exchange," we're back in just a moment. [thunder rumbles] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the biggest ideas inspire new ones. 30 years ago, state street created an etf that inspired the world to invest differently.

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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." we start with kbw upgrading lendingtree. it's led by a rebound in its insurance segment, shares up 1.5%. keybanc hikes constellation energy. those shares up nearly 1%. and loop capital initiating a teal with dell. it believes dell is at the very front end of at least two material catalysts, general ai servers and a refresh psych.

it's also time for your global briefing. we're going to start with hong kong developers getting a boost after the city left several marketing curves. it including scrapping tacks on res done chal property. that struggle to gain momentum following the post pandemic reb rebound. shares of just eat posts a nay narrower four-year loss. it owns grubhub. it cites strong demand in its key markets. reckitt is one of the losers behind airborne, lysol. reckitt expects a growth this year. shares are down more than 11%. coming up on the "worldwide exchange," we have the one word

every investor needs to know, y d why our next guest says it mabe a rough road for stocks, at least in the near term. stay with us. "worldwide exchan coming up after this. for all your skins, gold bond. what is cirkul? cirkul is the fuel you need to take flight. cirkul is the way. cirkul, available at walmart ands kul.com. oh no, a rash. maybe it'll go away. awww, how am i going to find a doctor i'll actually like? is that a qr code? dr. stafford makes you feel at ease. thanks rash! you've got more options than you know. book now.

. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." president biden talks about data protection against those that seem hostile.

they'll focus on the data brokers who collect and sell people's personal info. shares of microstrategy popping. you see the chart right there. the company says it acquired 3,000 additional bitcoin for a total of $155 billion. it now holds $11 billion worth of crypto. unitedhealth set to extend yesterday's losses. this follows a report that the department of justice is expanding its investigation. ebay moving higher after topping revenue and guidance expectations. it's hiking its dividends by 2 cents and buying back stock. bumble under some pressure. the dating app is laying off 30% of its work force as it takes significant and decisive action in interpret terms of accelerating its product. and also urban outfitter,

the retailer sees positive growth sales ahead. we look at the striking distance of a new all-time high. right now futures under pressure across the board, the nasdaq off of it lowserle letter today. looks like the dow would open 1 15 points lower. good morning. it's always good to see you. >> good morning, frank. >> we just looked at the futures right now. give us a sense. what's your w.e.x. word of the day. how do you see the day shaping up? >> my w.e.x. word of the day is euphoria, which is defined as a feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness. and, frank, i can't think of a better way to describe the market particularly after last week's knockout earnings report by nvidia. >> you're not really in a state of euphoria. you expect to see a pullback.

how are you having them prepare for this possible pullback? >> we do think we'll see a short-term pullback. we think the setup remains very positive, but by a lot of indications, the market is overbought. so if you look at hedge funds, they're in the 99th percentile. they're higher than they've been in recent years. today cash represents 1.7% of total positions. that has been slashed. that's the lowest level we've seen since december 2021. you've got the vix indicating complacency in the market. the s&p, whether you're looking at market cap or equal strength, the valuations are rich. we're telling clients if you need cash in the next six months, let's raise it now. you see a 5% pullback 95% of the time. you see a 10% pullback every 1.8

years. medium to long term still looks very positive. >> so the near term looks very positive, but something else you're looking out for could come later this week. it does not have impact on the markets to be clear. but do you have clients calling you saying do i need to prepare for this, and if so, how would you prepare for a worst-case scenario if it does happen? >> it's a great point. generally it does not have a big impact on the market, but right now it's priced to perfection and we aren't getting calls i'm worried about a shutdown. there is a sense of euphoria. in1re69er sentiment is very high. with that, if you look at what happened in august of last year with the downgrade, i think to the extent we get some negative news that could send treasury yields higher, which could be a headwind for equities, that could be a catalyst for a

short-term pullback. you never know what it's going to be, but we're due for that. >> lizzy, we've got to get going. but taiwan semi, what about that? >> i like them. they just opened their first factory this past weekend in japan. they're investing in their second. they have higher gross profit margins than their competitors. they're the largest foundry. i think they're the updesi. >> thank you so much. great to have you with us on "worldwide exchange." future's under pressure. "squawk box" takes it from here.

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good morning. apple reportedly canceling plans to build an electric car after ten years of development. details straight ahead. sources telling cnbc that warner bros. discovery is hadding merger talks with paramount global. we'll tell you which other players could be interested now in paramount. plus political news results from the michigan primaries and updated odds of a partial government shutdown coming this weekend.

it's wednesday, february 28th, and it's not the last day of february, 2024. did you know that? you knew that. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning and welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. we're liven at the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen, and, yes, this morning, melissa lee. becky is out. nice to see you. >> happy to be here. >> welcome to the party. >> we've been begging for six, seven days. >> the boys are by themselves. >> and you can't take it any longer. >> melissa lee is here. >> make it stop, make it stop. >> we appreciate you waking up very early for this. the do