offer to buy the company. plus, crude prices after opec plus countries agree to extend voluntary cuts. it's monday, march 4th, 2024 and "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 becky quick along with joe kernen. andrew is off today. here we go. the beginning of the week. right now, it looks like you have hred arrows. the dow futures down 80. the s&p futures are down 5. the nasdaq down by 11. of course, the nasdaq was up last week and the s&p was up

last week. overnight, in asia, japan's nikkei topped 40,000 for the first time. stronger corporate earnings and surge of chip stocks with artificial intelligence playing things up. the nikkei above 40,000. if you look back here in the united states, the treasury markets show yields are higher. ten-year yielding 4.2%. the price of bitcoin has been impossible to stop lately. you will see it is up another 3.7%. above 65,000. >> it will be a new high. theoretically. we are watching crude prices inching up toward $80. the high end of the range. $79.68. opec plus countries delaying

production. that means 2.2 million barrels per day of cuts planned for the first quarter of the year will continue into the next quarter. we will talk more about this and the implications with helima croft in the 8:00 hour. congressional leaders released the details of the first six budget bills to keep the government funded. democrats secured full funding of the special food assistance program for women, infants and children as well as rent assistance and pay for infrastructure to pay air traffic controllers and railway insp inspectors. republicans have funding cuts to several agencies, including the federal aviation administration and bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms and explosives. the funding package heads to the

house for a vote where it will face opposition from the house ca caucus and it will require additional bills to pass. former south carolina governor nikki haley won the first gop nominating contest yesterday. nbc news projects she won t district of columbia primary. trump responded calling haley queen of the swamp. super tuesday primary is not. here is what haley said on "meet the press." >> i always said this needs to be competitive. as long as we are competitive and as long as we are showing there is a place for us, i'm going to continue to fight. that's always the case. >> 15 states and one territory will vote for the nominee in tomorrow's primaries. it is super tuesday. we will see after that.

>> if she goes 0-15 tomorrow, could you still claim you are competitive? >> the part of the interview says as long as they gets donations coming in. >> if anyone continues. she doesn't win any? i haven't looked at the polls. d.c. is a unique place. >> it is. separately, a new poll by the new york sometimes found the majority of president biden's voters say he is too old to be effective. that cuts across generations and gender and race and education. 15% of trump's 2020 voters say he is too old to be effective at this point. the supreme court and we talked about this announcement yesterday. it would issue one decision today which is being seen as a signal it will rule on former

president trump's colorado ballot. the opinion or opinions would be posted online at 10:00 a.m. eastern. the court would not take the bench. the colorado republican party asked the court to act before the primary tomorrow. the decision is expected to apply to the other states where trump's eligibility to run has been challenged. no matter what, you will hear the same type of stuff. people want it to be 9-0 from one side so you can't make the claim it is partisan. either way, you will hear that the court is stacked with conservative judges need to expand it. there will be outrage if they -- even if it it is 9-0.

8-1 or 7-2, less so. either way, you will hear it. for people worried about democracy, if were you to really let a local judge decide on a national election of who people are allowed to vote on, that is strange for people to advocate they want democracy. >> before a case has been presented. >> what do you mean? before he was convicted of insurrection. >> right. >> whether that would happen or not. we did have an impeachment based on that. shares of macy's are jumping after arkhouse raised the offer to buy the department store chain. macy's rejected the prior offers which were too low. the previous offer of $21 per share is increased to $24 a

share. it is significantly higher than where the stock is now. shares of li auto are falling. the maker of the plug-in hybrid vehicles launched the full electric model on friday of a price of $78,000. the company also announced it delivered 20,000 vehicles in february. up 22% from a year earlier, but far below the january numbers. the stock has been on a tear in the last nine sessions before today's drop as you see on that chart. right now, i'll look up and see what one of these things looks like. no idea. >> you look that up. i will talk about what happened over the weekend. a big weekend at the box office. "dune part 2 "brought in $81

million. that was the highest releases for this year. 21% of the ticket sales were for imax screenings. it wasn't higher because they ran out of seats and could not sell more. did you find it? >> i did. i don't want one. i have no -- did you look it up? >> i'm looking. >> generic looking suv i've ever seen. no. no. i want the new tesla roadster, if it ever comes out. another broken record. caitlin clark is now the ncaa division i all-time leading scorer. she needed 18 fopoints to break the record and did it before halftime on a free throw based on a technical foul. she's cool. they interviewed her at halftime. they said what do you think

about this? you passed pistol pete maravich's record. a record that stood nearly 50 years. she finished the game with 35 points. at halftime, she said -- we can do better in the second half. we missed defense. you know, we have to clean things up in the second half. totally talking about defeating ohio state. >> she hoped she would be remembered for more than this. the joy of the game and how much fun she has with the team. >> she is like ice. it's awesome to watch. we'll be able to watch her turn pro. coming up, bitcoin trading above 65. it has been above and below. we were just talking about a potential catalyst heading into next month's halving.

it is like a reckoning or the rapture. a lot tied to this when it had this thing happen. later, elon musk's biographer walter isaacson will join us. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com. redib. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light. and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting. only at&t gives businesses our best deals on any iphone. get iphone 15 pro on us. (♪♪)

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bitcoin topping of 65,000 this morning. it had its best monthly performance since 2020. other cryptos like ethereum and solana also saw gains. joining us now is saveeta gupta. are you following the other ones? >> absolutely. >> it is a simple thing. it was bitcoin and then everything else. the nickname is sh coin. some of the others are real and they have blockchain

characteristics with utilitarian uses in the future? >> bitcoin has always been as we have talked in the past about the currency with the storage value. it has always now been coming with technology beyond settlement. ethereum is looking really, really great with the decentralization and etf which is a lot of expectations about to happen. when you talk about solana changing technology and the big drop prices are down to $16. it was also because of the s.e.c. naming solana a bunch of tokens as security without proof. we are seeing the technology come back. >> we have to bone up on this stuff, becky. it looks like it is here to stay.

people are waiting for ethereum etf. that is just a matter of time. >> it does look like it is a matter of time. it depends on how the s.e.c. takes it. in the past, even for bitcoin etf, they took their time and when the commissioner announced, s.e.c. commissioner announced the etf was here, it was past the code. with ethereum, it will be super easy or more difficult. the commissioners have very, very contrarian views about whether it is a security or a utility. the bank commissioner saying it is a utility. currently, they have not taken a great stand about it. the expectations and the numbers have been baked in. if you look at the jump in the last two months, you can see each etf expectations which has

been launched, the defi with $8 billion on new criticals is something we are not talking about. it has, i think, been under appreciated. >> you see ethereum as bitcoin? >> i see it as an infrastructure. a lot of microsoft or oracle was. bitcoin is more of a currency. technology is getting there, but it will take time with respect to technology to get there. the technology tokens have not seen the rallies there. at the end of the year, we will see the rally in the technology tokens with ethereum or anything that will push the adoption of anyone holding the efts needs

custody and way of settlement and transacting these things with the basic utilization. >> you said maybe it is the etf which may already be in ethereum. how much of the halving of bitcoin is reflected in the $65,000? when is it happening? >> end of april. >> okay. how much of the gains are reflected? >> i think two factors. one is the bitcoin halving expectation and it will be difficult to have more new supply of bitcoin. secondly, the bitcoin etfs are getting buyers. we saw prices going down a little bit, but more money is coming in with more people buying in. i expect a liquidity or a dip after the halving because the expectations are built in.

>> in the 40s? >> yes, that is possible. mid-40s. i don't see it going back to 20s any time soon. i do expect the end of the year or early next year with a huge jump not only for bitcoin, but the return more into the technology tokens. the technology has built up so much on all these platforms with real users and adoptions. >> we have tried to figure out gary gensler's story. he taught at m.i.t. he understands. why do you think he has been so -- i don't know, when you are in charge. s.e charge of the s.e.c., you want to do no harm. worry about fraud. we made that point. he made the point about

something else. he said you will throw that out? that doesn't really hold up. my question is there could be a different administration by next year. would a different s.e.c. be bullish? >> i feel there is a different s.e.c. irrespective of the administration. finally, we had a biden official on twitter indicate the bitcoin. the bitcoin was 64k plus. at the same time, trump has been focal about adoption of crypto. he has his own nft. it is difficult for him to come to the administration and go back on those things. i feel it will be needed by most of the young people in school

and colleges are part of the retail customer and also you have the full wall street which has now billion dollars going to trillion in the space. i feel that is what will be a huge demand, not only from the young voters, but the wall street. >> thanks for being here early this morning. kavita, we needed that with the events of the past couple days. i'm surprised it was only 50% this year. i did not realize bitcoin was in the mid-40s at the end of the year. other people were arguing about it. >> are you a bitcoin believer? >> you have seen my comments. did you see my 2019 comments? >> no. >> i'm show you. >> okay. >> in fact, if you search kernen and maximalist, it comes up from 2019.

i'm not new. people think i am. they can't believe a boomer believes in bitcoin. what are you going to do? >> great. it is always good to have amazing people like you on our side. >> i'll show you. we'll go to break and i'll show you my article. when we come back, new data on backing for women-led startups. that's next. later, we will talk to media analyst rich greenfield of the success of "dune part 2" at the box office ts hiweekend. "squawk box" will be right back. . rock star? what do you know about rock stars? 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!

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right now is time for the look at women funding women-led businesses. in 2023, women businesses g

garnered 2% of the startups in the united states according to pitch book. that number doesn't tell the whole story. sharon epperson has more on that. >> good morning, becky. a small fraction of the total pool, but funding has been trending up. it has been helped by funds and incubators for female founders and more companies. the emergency physician developed a device to stop nose bleeds. >> each can be used for one episode. >> her start up, nasa clip has raised $3 million in funding. mostly from female investors. >> when women invest in women, they bring to the table more than capital. they are introducing the social network. >> when we met her last year, nasa clip wasn't on the market. now the product is for sale and

bringing in revenue. >> i don't think i would have actually got off the ground at all if i had not been believed in early on by my fellow female investors. >> one of the backers is portfolia with investments in over 140 companies. >> it is all about putting our money behind the companies that will enhance our lives and provide returns. >> the platform creates and aimed at women investors. >> we have $25 trillion of wealth in the u.s. we're approaching 50% of all weth being owned by women in the u.s. today. that wealth is power if they use it. >> investors in portfolia funds must be accredited with $200,000 a year in income or $100 million of net worth minus a home.

each fund invests in 10 to 12 companies. >> we let them dip their toe in and give it a try and see what venture investing is about. >> investors have a stake in startups with the potential to generate value not just in dollars, but in women's lives. major corporations pledging to back under represented groups have helped drive the increase in money going to women. for more on women funding women and women investing in women, sc join me tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. for the women in wealth sum the summit. becky. >> sharon, which companies have made a difference for funding for women? where can female entrepreneurs find funding? >> there are corporations and services firms now looking to back women-led funds.

one is bank of america. they pledged in 2020 of $200 million that they will put to women-led and minority-led firms. they have given $500 million in equity investment. there are a number of companies raising funds. there are a lot of places women can go to look for money. angel investors and other capital investment funds. >> sharon, thank you. coming up, it's jobs week. we will get you ready for the friday jobs report and other issues to watch for the week. as we head to break, check out the shares of doordash. also highlighting the potential for the companies to work together in some kind of loyalty partnership against the common competitor. i don't know who they mean. the analyst does not expect a

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good morning. welcome back to "squawk box." we're live from the nasdaq market site in times square. things are moving slowly so far for monday morning. dow futures indicated off 90. s&p futures down 7. nasdaq down 16. fed chair jay powell set to testify on the hill this week with the all important jobs reports on friday. that could impact the direction of the markets, all of them. for more on that, let's bring in dana peterson andcovering the equity angle is nate tuftt. manager of the solutions team at an nanulife. nate, have you ever not had time to explain it? has anyone gotten it right the first try? >> never gotten it right the first try. good job today.

>> a darn good job. thooft. it is "tuft." i can't imagine growing up and -- god bless you. let's start with dana. is it possible the conjecture of some hawks, no cuts? >> anything is possible, but it is not the base case. we believe inflation will slow. we look at the year on year inflation rates for the pci and pc deflator is slowing on the year on year basis. you cannot just look at the year-end readings. these inflation gauges will descend upon 2%. once they feel comfortable about that, they will cut rates. they will start to do that the middle of the year, we believe.

>> dana, we suddenly thought you could have good growth in the economy and it is not necessarily inflationary, why won't you get as much output as you could, plus, it never hurts during an election year to have the wind at your back and if you want to get reappointed and everything else. i can see what you are saying. if inflation doesn't come down, i can't imagine they would cut. >> first of all, the fed is not concerned about elections. they are focused on monetdetary policy. the thing is inflation is slowing. so, that's something that the fed needs to continue to see. when we look at the economy, the data have been mixed to start the year. consumer spending was pretty weak and also incomes and after tax incomes in real terms are

slower. the thing is we may continue to see this weakness. we think the u.s. economy will probably slow to a growth rate between 0% to 1% in the second and third quarter and that will give the fed i ammpetus to cut rates. >> nate, you believe the path of least resistance is the continuing upward move in equities? >> we do. they think there is a potential for broadening of breadth. we see small caps and em world and some sectors that did not do well last year are seeing a broadening of participation in the market. a lot of that is the broadening of the earnings profile as well. last year, we had narrow markets driven by a.i. and tech driven. this year, we are starting to see earnings growth coming from other areas and broader participation. we think that will continue throughout the course of 2024.

>> that would certainly help in terms of broadening out. is that dependent on the economy staying strong, nate? is there anything that you see at this point that shows there's cracks in that narrative that the economy will stay strong? now we're not expecting a recession. that is when you usually get one. >> there's areas we see a bit of concern particularly with the potential for job weakness. job data is really strong, but there is underlining things with intention to fire or higre. our best case is the economy will hold up well and you have an environment that is pretty good for yeequities. that is predicated that we believe p inflinflation is comin in time. if that happens, the fed is likely to cut .75% or 1% during

the year which will help keep the narrative alive over the broadening of the equity markets. >> speaking ofparticipation, dana, back to your purview, what will allow inflation to come down given the job market is still so tight? unemployment is so low. could you see participation rate start going up? is is still too low? how do people going back to the office and four-day workweeks -- it doesn't seem like we're back to maximum -- not maximum employment, but there are still arguments where i want to stay home and work three days a week. it seems there is slack left in labor. >> well, we think about the participation rate, it is still below the 2019 level. when you break it up into two pieces, you have the people who are 15 to 64, the labor force

participation has recovered. people over 65 dropped out of the labor force during the pandemic and have not returned. many are baby boomers and they are going to be retiring. i don't see much slack in the labor market. it is a tight labor market because of the labor shortages. what we think about what is driving inflation, housing prices and rents are slowing. that is showing up in the inflation gauge. that is a downward pressure. an upward pressure are wages with the labor shortages in certain sectors of the economy. >> all right. we will go on. nate, is it too late for me to buy nvidia? >> i thinkthere are parts of the market that are effective. a name like nvidia with earnings which have kept up as much as

valuation. valuations are not higher. they have phenomenal growth with the semiconductor areas and it more than a valuation story. i'm not saying the entire sector of the a.i. story, but there is speculation there. when you look at the broader markets, there are a lot of areas which have not achieved. we believe that despite the commentary around things getting frothy and speculative, the overall market has recently hit record highs. typically the market goes above the former highs with the secular bull market. we think there is room to go in the base case for higher highs across the major indices. >> okay. thank you, nate thooft at manulife. when we come back, china kicks off the parliament eiary meetings this week. we will take you live to

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china holding the annual parliamentary meetings this week. eunice yoon is joining us live from beijing. is it that time, eunice? >> reporter: it is. march. the thousands of delegates are here. the top officials have said, joe, that the economic issues are going to be the ones that top the agenda. of course, businesses as well as investors, want to see what policies and other support would

back the statements. the event which is a week long will be kicking off on tuesday. that's when the premier will deliver his work report rolling out with the targets that are supposed to be for 2024 on gdp around 5% and consumer inflation at 3% and the fiscal deficit at% to 3.5% of gdp. a lot of analysts are saying these numbers on the fiscal deficit and gdp may hit on the high end. there is focus on special bonds treasury as well as local that would be seen as spending investing in infrastructure as well as advanced a.i. what beijing has more and more been describing as productive forces. the commentary all week long has been skcrutinized for real estae and consumption and private

sector. joe, so far, one signal on openness isk encouraging. that is because china will cancel the once a year meet the press which has been around since 1993. not very good for openness. >> just no, we're not doing it? that doesn't satisfy me. what reason did they give? >> reporter: they did give a reason. they said the premier is going to be giving a lot of information at his work report on tuesday. they said that there will be pressors with other officials and they could go into detail. the past several years, they have not been going into detail. that is the reason they decided to cancel the press briefing which happens at the close of

the ceremony. what was also interesting is they said it will be canceled for many years. >> no kidding. >> reporter: it looks like the press briefing will not happen. it only happens once a year. you speak to us once a year. >> we are over here in ignorant bliss, speaking for myself. this is all really important stuff which is linked. we have -- we are counting on inflation coming down and the economy and a lot of it has to do with the recent weakness in china. we keep waiting for china to rebound sharply. what you just said -- i don't know what we do without it, eunice. thank you. we are much better here. how weird is that? >> reporter: yeah. it is. for china, you mentioned the concerns here and they are facing a crisis of confidence.

that's what the government has to turn around. >> we're not looking for openness any time soon from the ccp. obviously. it is getting less open which is amazing. eunice, thank you. we'll talk later. when we come back, the openai feud. elon musk suing the company that he co-founded and its ceo sam altman. is openai acting like a non-profit? we will take on that topic next and see he what the court's view is. and as we head to break, check out shares of nvidia. up nearly 70% so far this year. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business. next level moments need the next level network. from rylee's rea! hi! this listing sounds incredible.

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. elon musk is suing open ai and its ceo sam altman, in a 35 page lawsuit that was filed late thursday night, it argues open ai has been transformed into a closed source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, microsoft. joining us right now is rose chan louie, the executive director for the lowell mill ken center on philanthropy and nonprofits at ucla, and rose, les let's run through this first of all, i think people are looking closely at whether elon musk has the rights to bring this lawsuit because usually something ha is of this nature

is brought by an attorney general. what do you think? what are the odds? >> well, we did need someone with the will and the wealth to bring attention to this, so we're grateful, i think that he's keeping a spotlight on open ai based on the facts alleged in the complaint, it does look like he has a good case substantively, but you're right, becky, that it could be an uphill battle regarding his right to bring the case, whether he has what we call standing typically it would be a director or a recently ousted director who would bring a suit such as this, and so in his case, it looks like they have some novel theories for bringing the suit in at least one of the causes of action in the complaint, the one for breach of fiduciary duty, that is typically required to be brought by the california attorney general so. >> let's go back to just this

question of whether open ai is behaving like a nonprofit. there are some nonprofits that have profits but this is pretty staggering just in terms of the numbers that are going to start adding up. >> that's exactly right. it does look to us right now that the for profit interests are riding the nonprofit horse shall we say, but it was very carefully structured with open ai, the nonprofit originating the whole structure and being designed so that the not only profit board would govern the entire entity. and like you said, it's not uncommon for this. but in this particular case when the for profit subsidiary has a valuation of what $89 billion right now and everyone except a couple of the board members has an interest in that valuation, it becomes very hard for that

charitable purpose not to be pushed aside. so yes, yes, i think we're not sure right now that the privacy of the charitable purpose is staying -- is being followed. >> i mean, reading through the lawsuit trying to figure out how they're pinning this, that founding agreement is kind of where elon musk's lawsuit stands on all of these things saying that they basically lit it up in flames when they took this latest step with microsoft. how do you think a judge will look at this? how do the courts come down with past press cedent? >> it's interesting. they basically are saying that the article, the certificate of incorporation is the founding agreement, and as nonprofit lawyers, we don't typically think of it that way, but it does seem like they have a good case for that. in delaware, took a look at that, it looked like they

characterized the certificate of incorporation there as an agreement among the parties. so there's the other issue, i think, becky is whether a california court will follow delaware law. so we've got a couple -- they're incorporated in delaware, all of the entities are incorporated in delaware, but the principal place of business is here in california. >> so a lot still to come, rose, it sounds like. >> a lot still to come, yes. i think we're really hoping that -- ideally, we have new board members will protect open ai's legal purpose of developing ai for the benefit of humanity. but barring that, we're hoping the suit gets regulators to pay attention. >> rose, thank you very much for your time northern. >> this morning. >> thank you, becky. big week for the markets, fed chairman powell expected to testify on capitol hill this

week, and the jobs report coming on friday. will the bulls continue to rule the street. that's coming up next. and check out the shares of apple. the company expected to roll out some new products, we'll find out what wl ilbe coming from the tech company in the next half hour. "squawk box" will be coming right back.

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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! good morning. retail earnings and the fed in focus again this week for investors. oh, and the jobs report for february is coming at the end of this week. we've not a look at the markets ahead of that busy week for wall street. avoiding a partial shutdown, congress unveils the first six budget bills as the clock ticks. we'll have the latest from

washington. and a big weekend at the box office for warner brothers dune 2. can the movie be a catalyst for what's been a sleepy box office? we'll go biehind the silver screen as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good monday morning, welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square, i'm joe kernen along with becky quick. andrew's off this morning. we'll take a quick look at the futures, and setting up down about 90 points this morning on the dow. s&p indicated a little weaker. als also, the nasdaq fractionally down about 3.5 points. treasuries this morning with the jobs report on everyone's mind

coming up on friday. 4.2 and crypto, at least bitcoin, actually, most of crypto has been -- i had a really firm bid. 65,200 getting close to -- i can't remember the exact high, but i guess in british pounds it's already hit a high i read this morning. but not quite yet, i don't think, for based in dollars. >> let's get over to dom chu right now, he's got a look at some of the morning's premarket m movers. happy monday. >> monday morning moves with a check on shares of macy's. they're higher by about 16% or so premarket, around 100,000 shares of trading volume. the department store operator behind its name sake brand, bloomingdale, others, is seeing a deal pickup this morning, even further, after arc house management and brigade capital raised their proposed takeover bid by 14% to $24 a share. that tops the previous $21 per

share price that they had had. that values macy's at roughly $6.6 billion. macy's says it will carefully review and evaluate the latest proposal. that's why shares are up 16%. check out shares of lyft and doordash upgraded at rbc capital market doordash goes to 175. they cite better competitive positioning and new business initiatives and international verticals at doordash. lyft up about 6% in the premarket trade. a check on shares of at&t moving between modest gains and losses right now, just aboutflat on the session around 40,000 shares of volume. the telecon giant is slated to present at a tnt conference later on today. jeff mcel fresh will be laying out at&t's progress. at&t shares ones to watch later

on today. thank you very much. folks we do have some breaking news out of europe concerning apple. steve kovach is here, he's got the details on that. >> this is a $1.8 billion euro fine, that's 1.9 in change in u.s. dollars against apple. this is over apple music in europe, spotify filed a complaint with the european commission several years ago. this is all the same stuff that we've been talking about, just the fees that apple takes. apple's inability or rather spotify's inability to charge within its app without actually, you know, giving apple that cut. apple's response here, they said they are going to appeal the decision, and they lay out -- there's a big blog post out now from apple ripping apart this decision basically saying things like spotify is taking advantage of the apple ecosystem by paying basically no commission fees, by kind of getting around those fees. i talked to one of spotify's

lawyers about this last week, guys, and their position on this is, well, you know, we want to pay less fees, of course, they want to make more money. but what they also say is apple's ecosystem wouldn't be as successful without these third-party apps. their position is we're adding value to this apple ecosystem too, us and a lot of other developers. cleary the eu agrees more with spotify. this is going to be about $1.9 billion u.s. fine for apple. ask t of course they're going to appeal. the digital markets act, that big muscular eu law over there, that's going to really crack down on apple and google and facebook and so many other u.s. tech companies. those rules go into full effect, i'll have more reporting on that later this week. this is just one beat in just this big drama between these companies. >> is this the one where they kind of whittled it down over

time? >> exactly. >> this is basically them saying you have to at least allow the developers to have their own subscription signups within instead of saying you have to use apple pay for these things too? >> these are separate cases but related, and so the digital markets act in theory takes care of a lot of this. we're looking here. >> this is a much bigger fine. >> it was reported 500 million. >> that's what i was going to say. >> this is more than double what people were expecting. >> it's more than triple. >> you heard me off air, i went whoa when the news came in. this is a huge fine, and it also shows this digital markets act, violations of that, 10% of global revenue, so $400 billion for apple. that's a $40 billion fine if they violate. obviously there's processes they can go through, so the fines are huge. >> and i mean, they've already changed their policies on this. they changed the policies at least a year or two ago because

japan was making noises too. >> it's different region by region. what we've also seen apple do is fight this region by region, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, the changes that they're going to make to comply with the dna later this week, it's only going to be in europe, so you're going to have a different iphone experience as a european customer than people in the rest of the world, but a lot of people see those changes as emblematic of what they might have to do in theu.s. we're expecting any day now the doj to file their antitrust lawsuit against apple, which covers a lot of these same issues. this could be a template for what we see around the world, even though this is happening now. >> i know apple doesn't break this out, but i was looking at numbers, estimates of what these things are. and at least according to the verge, some of the numbers that they've looked at on this, i think it's something like 1.8 -- or 8.3 billion in revenue that was taken in in apple music in 2022. if you compare that to the size of the fine, that's a pretty

hu huge chunk. >> spotify's argument has been they have the advantage. they can afford to lose money whereas we can't, and so that's part of spotify's argument as well because apple has way more businesses than music and it's not charging itself a 30% either. >> apple's shares decline of about 3/4 of a percent. >> and there will be an appeal, and there's going to be more battles. it's not over. apple's idea for complying with the european commission rules going in effect on thursday, apple doesn't even know if they're in compliance with what the ec wants. so it's going to be an interesting experiment to see once apple puts this out there if the ec agrees you are in compliance. spotify and so many other developers are saying huh-uh, this isn't going to cut it. >> we need apple for the market. >> yes. >> and it hasn't -- >> or nvidia that's fine. >> has the baton been passed?

2.7 trillion on apple, wu it has been -- >> the baton's been passed to microsoft. >> right. >> apple has no ai story to tell in the same way microsoft -- >> right, apple's an important sign. >> your 401(k), my 401(k). >> they got anything good coming out? >> there's rumors that as soon as today we may get new macs and ipads. is that going to change what we've seen with the stock? >> it hasn't, but it's been enough for the last couple of years to keep it going. >> apple is putting enormous pressure, this ai announcement tim cook has been teasing over the past few weeks, e. if it doesn't live up to that, look out. >> the goggles aren't going to do it? >> did you buy one? >> are you out of your mind? >> i didn't even buy one. >> they make fun of people already. >> i don't think andrew's even bought it, and he's like the biggest fan of it.

>> we'll see how long he -- changes, doesn't work out someti sometimes. thank you steve. joining us to talk markets, sam stillwell. >> anybody in the meta universe? >> no. >> i've tried to get as an avatar sam stow vvall's image, you have a copyright on that, i can't do that, can i, sam? >> just look over my shoulder, joe, and you'll see my bobblehead, i'll give you a nod for that. >> sam, are you bullish for the year? j i am bullish for the year. i have a 5,200 target for the s&p 500. you might actually say, well, gee, we're pretty close to that, so how can you be that bullish? but basically what we find is that after great years -- and last year was a great year -- the market tends to post good returns, meaning average gain of about 10%. and we've seen an improvement in the frequency of advance

following a great year. so target prices, they might be adjusted, but essentially i regard them as weather vanes rather than laser beams, not necessarily trying to guess exactly where it will close. >> just saying we're going to close higher is in is and of itself, that's taking a stand, sam, and we get spoiled. what a year we had last year, and if you remember the beginning of last year, no one was talking about what the gains were going to be. most people were talking about how low of a low we were going to revisit. we saw 3,500 on the s&p. we saw some people down at 3,000. they don't have their jobs anymore, but -- >> that's right, but actually, if they followed history, joe, history said to expect about a 25% gain because we had a down year, we had an up january, and we had a q1 low that did not exceed the prior december low.

every time that's happened since world war ii, the market was higher 100% of the time with an average gain of more than 25%. >> that's exactly what happened. and then so you're looking historically at the year after something like that too, sam, to get to -- >> yes, exactly. we've got a positive indication from the as goes yjanuary so gos the year, average gain close to 16% with 100% up move. also, we just concluded january and february in higher territory. we have never posted a full-year decaroline on a total return ba when that's happened since world war ii, and only twice did we not end up in positive territory in the final ten months of the year. >> well, unless we have -- it wouldn't be a surprise if we hadn't had volatility in a while. but unless we have no volatility, to end up with your year end target, i guess we could go higher. we could go lower. what do you see -- how do you see it playing out? when did you see weakness being

m man manifested? when did you see a bit of a pullback? >> well, history says we should be getting ready to pull back. we recovered all that we lost in the prior bear market on january 19th. traditionally we advance about two months gaining about 5% plus. and what we have gained so far since january 19th is the third highest of all post-bull market recoveries. since world war ii. so we're about due for some sort of digestion of gains, but i can offer some encouragement in that the average decline is about 8%, and we have not had a decline in excess of 14, meaning we done typically drop from exhaustion into a new bear market but rather into what i call a pullback, which is about a 5 to 10% decline before conning to move higher. >> what's your overall view on what kind of economy this is, sam? is it strong?

is it strengthening? some people think it's strengthening. other people think eventually you're going to see some cracks and the prospect for rate cuts later this year. >> right, well, i think the economy is in a good position right now. our expectation is for a sub 2% growth q4 of '24 over q4 of '23, not surprisingly because i think that the fed will be slower to lower interest rates, meaning the first cut will come in june. we'll probably see three 25 basis point cuts this year. one in each quarter. unemployment might approach the 4% level as we move into 2025, so i would tend to say that things are going along quite s smoothly and what really would interrupt this market advance is probably an unanticipated event, which you know, joe, are hard to anticipate. >> we've got to end it there. we'll check back in a couple of

weeks, i would imagine, or months. good to have you on, thanks. >> thanks. still to come this morning, why a recession can be avoided thanks to women in the work force. yale university lecturer joann litman will be here to explain her latest op-ed. and later, lawmakers releasing the details of the first six budget bills needed to keep government agencies funded and open. we'll have more on the budget battle in just a bit. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird, visit bairddifference.com.

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also the author of "next: the power of reinvention and life in work," and she's a cnbc contributor. joann, this is a pretty interesting article. we have pushed off that recession that everybody thought was coming. you think a big part of ha is women in the work force. you want to explain? >> yeah, absolutely. i do think that women are the economy's secret weapon because if you look at what's happening with women's employment. go back four years, first of all, to the beginning of the pandemic, which was actually next week four years ago. women were slammed, right? we had the she session. we lost more than 12 million jobs. women lost or left their jobs. >> because they were supposed to be at home teaching their kids. >> part of it was the kinds of jobs they were in. part of it was because the schools were closed, day care was closed, they had no choice. there was concern then. it sent women back 30 years. janet yellen among others said this could be permanent scarring she said. now, you fast forward, by last spring what happened was women not only soared back to previous

levels but surpassed previous levels. we hit a record of female work force participation women age 25 to 54 last spring, and it has stayed historically high levels since then. >> you think part of that is flexibility. i think one of the statistics you pointed out is 40% of people work remote one day a week, which is a stunning number. >> it is a stunning number. companies now are pushing back. i think this is actually of some concern. i spoke to quite a few women who have been pushed out now at this point. you know, joe you were talking earlier about the tight labor market. this is one group where the numbers have only increased, and now we're kind of putting this pressure on. we have to have sort of a more nuanced look at -- because, look, i understand how important it is. we talked about this before to

be on the premises to work for culture, for collaboration. at the same time, we're pushing out an entire group of particularly mothers of young children, parents of disabled kids. who were able to work because of these remote and hybrid options. i've taken both sides of this argument. sort of thinking about japan and the problems japan has had. one of the things that they have riding right now is their hope to get more women into the work force. if hay they don't, there's only much growth they can anticipate from that economy. japan's pretty notoriously difficult in terms of the hours you're expected to work, in terms of what's expected at home for mothers as well. and that's probably a unique difference we have and something that has helped us. >> it is as well, and there's been a lot of research, actually, on the relationship between women in the workplace and gdp, and moody's has done

this and various other economists have looked at this and the figures i've seen are as much as, if we just level up women to the level of other developed countries where they have better day care and federally subsidized day care and they have higher levels of work force participation, if we just leveled up women in the united states, it would add something like $650 billion to gdp every year. >> but what you're making the argument right now is that companies should be a little more flexible, especially if you're dealing with women or parents who have issues at home. >> my argument 100% is to have these inflexible return to office mandates, i understand why people are doing it, but at the same time, we need to be more nuanced. we need to have more flexibility in our thinking. i've heard from so many women because i've been out there talking and writing about this, the stories you get from women are just heartbreaking. i mean, women who actually have been working very successfully at home or remotely for, you

know, for a number of years, and then suddenly they lose their job. >> all right, let me ask -- make this a little bit of a tougher question. >> sure. if you have flexibility, how old you make less money? >> i don't think so. if you're doing the job -- i think we have to get out of the mind-set of thewhere you are doing your job and get back into the mind-set of what are you contributing? >> does it cost more money to commute in every day. it costs more money if you're krooiin driving in, if you have to pay for congestion parking. should you get a reward? let's turn it from a stick to a carrot. should you get a reward for showing up and dealing with this stuff? >> i think rather than pay, i do think the reward could be more along the lines of we'll take care of your parking or we'll gif you, give you a commuting allowance, as opposed to saying you get more. your job is not worth more.

your expenses might be more, but your job not we know how to do it are from home now, people who can benefit from it, they should be doing it. all the slackers that don't want to come back, those are the ones we've got to get back here. we should be on a case by case basis be able to decide, people who need to work at home, let them work at home. people who can come back, get your ass in here. >> yeah, i totally agree with you. you're absolutely right. >> we learn how to do it. let's take advantage of it. >> exactly. we know how to do it. and by the way -- >> we're always simipatico. i just say it more bluntly. >> always, joe. >> but it is true that, you know, also women are more educated than men, so we know that, you know, women -- i've talked to the economists who say, look, women actually as a group contribute more to productivity, which is another issue that is of concern.

women have become -- j working moms are -- >> let's not go overboard here. i don't want to feel badly about myself after this. we've got to go. >> i'm going to cut you off. thank you. >> coming up, the battle between elon musk and sam altman over ai heating up. details straight ahead. futures right now continue, it will be pulling back a little bit, and we'll be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box." futures right now, we were down 100 a minute ago on the dow. we've got some positive nasdaq is actually in the green at this point, check out the shares of disney this morning. got some news about activist black well's capital sending a letter to shareholders urging them to vote for its slate of board candidates. it says additional independence in the boardroom is good for shareholders that criticize compensation practices at disney, and it said disney must produce an artificial intelligence strategy. also, sort of criticizing some of the old boy aspects of the -- i don't know, maybe we need a different phrase for that.

some of the -- >> that's probably not -- >> that's not good either. they point out that bob iger has some pretty close friends on the board, and just sort of the criticism we have of a lot of corporate boards that there is some -- i don't want to use anything. rubber stamp, but something not as independent as they should be with the ceo. >> i suppose, but do you want a bunch of people who have no idea and who haven't spent the time? >> exactly. >> eyou look at the solutions, and sometimes they're not great. >> if you've got a board that's in the pocket of the ceo, his compensation. they're criticizing that as well. so that's something we hear a lot from different -- >> the reason that boards, that directors should own a big stake in the company themselves, or a big part of their own net worth should be part of it. that does seem a way to make sure that their interests are aligned with the shareholders. >> exactly. when we come back, lawmakers

releasing the detailed text of the six bills needed to prevent a partial government shutdown. we run through the bills and we'll talk d.c. funding. that's next. and later in the program, walter isaacson joins us to talk about the war that has erupted between musk and open ai's sam altman erhe future of ai. "squawk box" will be right back.

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after months of negotiations, lawmakers have finally released the detailed text of the six bills needed to prevent a partial government shutdown this friday. let's get over to emily wilkins in washington. she's got more on this. how should we be reading all of this? >> well, becky for those who have been watching congress kick the can down the road again and again and again, lawmakers finally seem ready to actually fund the government for the rest of the 2024 fiscal year, at least what is left of it. republicans and democratic leaders announced this agreement on the first batch of spending bills on sunday afternoon. again, they've been working towards this for months now. it covers $460 billion in government programs. the package also includes several additional measures like preventing oil from the

strategic petroleum reserve from being sold to china, and another measure that would strengthen how foreign ownership of u.s. farmland is tracked and reviewed. republicans can tout some wins here on several issues such as prohibiting the tis department from targeting parents who speak at school board meetings. they also were able to keep a pro-o'gun measure in the bill making it harder for the veteran affairs department to report a veteran's info to the national criminal background check system. democrats also got some wins. they were able to get more funding for a nutritional program for women, infants and children and to increase help to those in rural areas to afford rentals. of course the bill still has to pass both chambers by friday end of day in order to prevent a shutdown, but lawmakers seem to be feeling good about it. they're not in a rush. they're not coming back to town until tuesday night and the first vote on the bill isn't expected until wednesday in the house. speaker mike johnson is going to be prlanning to use an expedite

process that will require democrats to help out. it will avoid the chance for a small group of hard line conservatives to sink this bill at the last minute. the pieces of government funding moving this week are widely considered to be the easiest bills when it comes to agreeing on funding. the rest of the $1.6 trillion in government spending is due on march 22nd. we know that negotiations on that are ongoing, but that's going to be a lot more tricky to do, becky, and so we'll have to keep a krclose eye on what happs with that next tranche of bills. congress is now almost six months past that initial deadline found the government. so what hasthis meant for the ability to have congress to move the other bills. have we gotten any work done? march 22nd isn't that far away either? >> there really has been a lot of kicking the can down the road, not just with these spending bills. you look at key programs for the federal aviation administration, that's gotten bumped to may. programs to update key security,

that's gotten bumped down the road as well, and there are all these things that lawmakers say they want to do. we haven't seen any legislation on ai despite that being a top priority for majority leader chuck schumer. we've also seen a lot of lawmakers, especially after that hearing with mark zuckerberg come out and endorse some of these child online safety protection bills. but again, not a lot of chance for that to get to the floor. tax packages. the fact of the matter is that you do have all of these bipartisan bills in congress that could potentially move forward. but there's just not the opportunity to get that work done. they've been so focused on these spending bill deadlines. >> emily, thank you very much. >> right now for more on this conversation, we want to bring in kay bailey hutchinson, former u.s. ambassador tomat nato, and steve israel, former congressman of new york, the director of cornell university's institute of policy and global affairs. welcome to both of you. senator hutchinson, let's start

with you on this. from the outside it certainly rook looks like it is a lot harder to get things done in washington these days. as somebody who knows their way around, what do you think? >> oh, becky, that's the understatement of the year. we've watched this back and forth, of course the house and senate have very small margins. the democrats on the senateside and the house on the house republicans. it means that you've got to work across the aisle and that is very difficult to do with these small margins. it's tough. that's for sure, but i was pleased to see that there is now some funding coming forward to fund this cycle that we're in now, halfway in already. so hopefully they do fund the government. i know republicans are trying very hard to hold the line on spending and start whittling down that debt, which we know, and also take care of some of the over regulation of business that is beginning to really hurt

our tech companies and our energy companies. >> congressman israel, if this is the easy stuff and we still don't even have approval, we're assuming at this point we'll get it before friday, if this is the easy stuff, what does that mean about all the rest of the budgeting items that still need to take place before march 22nd? >> well, thank you for having me on. look, some of the most important budget imperatives are still out there, funding ukraine, funding israel, taiwan, we have national security needs in this concern, and they're not being funded right nowbecause of the on city innocence of several members of congress. i will say to emily's reporting, she mentioned kicking the can down the road. what's significant about this compromise, after months of kicking that can down the road, we're right back at the beginning of the road. this agreement largely conforms to the agreement that was made between the white house, president biden, and then republican speaker kevin mccarthy. it largely conforms with that

agreement where many months later in dealing with some of the same issues that were already addressed. the question whethill be -- wha i'll be look ago the when this vote is taken in the house on wednesday. dm democrats will support this. you need a two-thirds vote. the question is will speaker johnson be able to get at least a majority of his majority to join with democrats and support and pass a bipartisan bill that the senate can then vote on. >> senator hutchison, let's get to that, just how complicated it is in washington these days. obviously the two sides often disagree on things. what's been different in the past that has led to bipartisan legislation getting passed? >> becky, i think it is because more and more members are being elected at the far fringes, and that's on the republican side

and the democratic side. you've got the far left, the far right, and unfortunately these people are saying my way or the highway, but they're not realizing that in a legislative body, you have people elected from very different constituents, from very different states, and you have to compromise and get something of what up but not everything. and i think these far right fringes, far left fringes are not compromising, and i think until we start seeing that in the electorate make a difference where people start saying i'm going to vote for a conservative or a liberal but someone who wants to get things done and will compromise to do that, i think we're going to continue to see this unless the electorate makes larger margins in congress. one thing i'm focusing on is the house and senate for the next

election. that's where i think the rubber hits the roads, and if we're going to have a change in this over regulation in the inflation, in the border crisis, we're going to have to have people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and compromise. >> that makes a lot of sense. congressman israel, we're about out of time. what can you add to that? >> there was a bipartisan compromise on the borders and immigration, and donald trump rejected it, demanded that republicans oppose it simply because he wanted to take the credit for it, rather than give it to joe biden. that's not the spirit of compromise and bipartisanship we need in washington. >> i'm sorry, we're out of time. senator hutchison, congressman israel, thank you both for joining us. coming up, warner brothers sci-fi sequel "dune 2" riding sand worms to the top of the box office raking in $81.5 million l. we're going to speak with media analyst rich greenfield about this weekend's movie success, what it could mean for wnearr

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you know doug, ever since switching to workday you've been a real rock star. rock star? what do you know about rock stars? 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! new details emerging in the fight between elon musk and sam

altman. steve kovach joins us. >> i'm back, did you miss me? >> were you on here earlier? >> yeah. >> i knew that. >> who am i reminding you of? go ahead. >> i'm not going to say it. >> president of mexico. >> i'm not going to say. no, so friday morning i was here talking about this lawsuit, and then, you know, we didn't hear from open ai. i did get a look at some of its internal communication that ceo sam altman and his chief strategy officer set out, you know, company wide, obviously concern inside the company. i'll read directly here from what the chief strategy officer told employees, quote, we believe the claims in this suit may stem from elon's regrets about not being involved in the company. so this is kind of what i was saying. >> sour kbgrapes. >> it feels like sour grapes. he was involved in this company, he helped found this company. >> he's going really hard on this as well saying, you know, obviously he has a financial stake in this too, but this also

goes back to the question of another claim in the lawsuit of artificial general intelligence, and here in these memos, the executives basically saying elon musk is out here saying we've achieved this artificial general intelligence, which is like human level intelligence that we've not achieved. no one at open ai is saying they've achieved this. when they do, that relationship between microsoft goes away. microsoft doesn't have access to that special technology if it ever happens. so that's kind of the argument for unwinding -- >> that's going to be a difficult part of the case they need to get involved with, proving whether artificial general intelligence is, what that line is. i do think going back to this founding agreement, there are lots of questions about whether they agree to do this, whether the company is acting like a nonprofit. >> right. >> and we have heard other people saying, jay clayton saying and others the guests we had on earlier today, rose chan loui suggesting that attorneys

general, their hope is that this case will get interest in attorneys general who can then go in and look at whether they are comporting themselves as a nonprofit. >> and in the memo sam altman sent out, they defend the structure, you know, and saying we are still a nonprofit, you know, the mission haa change. we still want to benefit humanity, all the things that elon musk is saying in a lawsuit they're not doing, but again, this is also -- i mean, the vc has been on x kind of defending the open ai side about this saying, you know, this is a normal structure or this happens all the time. a nonprofit can spin off or form this kind of separate for profit entity. >> usually the for profit isn't worth $80 billion. >> on maybe even 100. there's some rumbling about that. absolutely. this is becoming such a headache for microsoft, this wonky structure with this company they got involved in for this subsidiary and kind of hinging so much of their technology and future products on what open ai is doing. >> it certainly helped microsoft's shares to this

point. >> absolutely. it's an a irgs story. >> it's a really weird thing. they bought 49% of the profits from the profit entity. >> the capped profit, yes. >> of the nonprofit. it's kind of difficult to understand how all of this is going to hinge and how the court's going to see it. >> and also with all the money invested in this, those investors are going to want a return of some kind. how do you ipo a company like that. there's so many questions, and you know, microsoft is even kind of backed off saying, trying to say we're less reliant on open ai than we may have presented early. they invested in that open source european company a week or so ago, said they're kind of spreading love a little bit so as to hedge their bets in case this part blows up again. >> human level intelligence. >> yeah. >> you drive a truck -- >> it depends on what -- >> you can drive a truck through. >> depends on which human you're talking about. >> have you been on twitter? >> can i pick the human? >> you can. >> it's you. how about we use you, joe.

>> even in the middle of the belt grove. if we're down here, we're already there. >> no one thinks it's general intelligence because, i mean, we've seen it hallucinate a few weeks ago, chatgpt was answering english questions in spanish for some reason. that's not human intelligence, no one, even a layman would call it that. >> it's got to be a lot smarter than some of the people that i see. >> it's already there. >> the bar's going to be pretty low, though. >> right, not my followers. >> no, definitely not. >> thank you, steven. next hour, musk biographer walter isaacson is going to join us. he's smart, maybe if we can get it to get his level of -- >> he writes books that are thousands of pages. >> he's a professor. >> political views are pretty screwed up. he'll be on, join us for that. i just did the tease, didn't i? >> a programming note, tomorrow on "squawk box" target's ceo brian cornell will join us at

7:00 a.m. eastern time after the company's latest quarterly results, and ahead of the company's investor day. that is tomorrow at 007: a.m. eastern time. "squawk box" will be right back.

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theaters this weekend. hit them and grossing $81.5 million at the domestic box office making it the highest grossing movie of 2024 so far. joining us now is rich greenfield. a lightshed partners. rich, it's a good number, i guess. didn't we used to do hundreds, 200s? all the time? what, what did we used to do typically. >> look, joe, this is a great number. i think the team at warner brothers should be very happy. a great start for this film and shows when you put, you know, really compelling content in theaters people show up. i mean, i think the challenge is that audiences are being a lot

more selective and that's a function of, i think, just so much incredible content at home. the bar to leave your house, the bar to go to a theater it just higher than it was, and i think the pandemic just pushed that even higher. >> i don't know if you heard my question, what -- excuse me, didn't we used to do hundreds all the time for openings? >> i think better way to think about it is, i think this would have been the 11th or 12th best weekend of 2019. if you think about pre-pandemic, you know, this was a, not even a top ten weekend. now, you know, "dune" was a very good number. it's going to be a profitable movie, but this certainly isn't sort of the, the massive successes that we saw during 2019, but it's a very good start for warner brothers and, look, zaslav and team need success on the film side for sure. >> i know i have to see it probably this weekend. going to have to probably go together with parts of my family, rich. should i see the first one

again? i don't remember what happened. i remember the worms. that's about all i remember. bone up on the first to see the second? have you seen it yet? >> you actually can watch the first one. i believe on both max as well as netflix. they had a very smart strategy of putting it on to netflix to broaden the audience. ahead of coming out, the second one coming out in theaters. >> the -- the demise of the movie theater was or wasn't greatly exaggerated. now i'm back to thinking still tough sledding. what's going to turn the corner, rich? >> joe, we're not, you know -- the industry's changing. right? it's getting tougher. you know? look at -- you know, if you look at overall box office, yes, it's impacted, no doubt, by the strikes last year. but you're still down, you know, 40-plus percent from pre-pandemic levels. it will get better probably finish the year better than where we are now because volume

picks up across the rest of the year. the question, though, is, are we still going to be down 15%, 20% 25shgs20%% from pre-pandemic levels. it's not terrible just a smaller business than historically. the key, is it being a mauler business than you had before? >> a great year. in my view. maybe because i saw all of these oscar nominees at telluride. five unbelievably great films that came out. i mean, these should be some of the best of times not some of the worst of times. i'm not talking about, like, ridiculous, the aeeighth sequelo a superhero. "n "anatomy of the fall". >> did that leave you wondering what really happened, though,

joe? >> it did. yeah. might have done it. not sure. wasn't it great? did you see "zone of interest," too? >> i thought "anatomy of the fall" greatest picture i've seen. rarely do you see foreign language films show up -- >> and "salt burn" sick. just sick. >> you auditioned, joe. >> like the -- that guy's hilarious. i did not like "poor things." didn't get that at all. rich, but this should be a better time. i'm not sure what the anecdote to this is. i don't know. i don't know how you fix things, rich. you need to help me. >> i don't think it's -- not a fixing or not fixing. just the way -- our job at lightshed, where is the puck going? when you look at the explosion of streaming and what's happened in the streaming universe over

the course of the last decade, there's just an incredible amount of content. so, yes. having a collective experience at a movie theater is still amazing, and i think people will always want to gather together to watch something and have that quote/unquote experience. it's less special than it used to be. >> all right, greenfield. see "all of us sanrstrge" see that? rich, thank you.

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good morning. stock futures at least far as the dow goes lower ahead of the monday morning opening bell. s&p and nasdaq both ending last week, though, with record closes. on investors' minds, testimony from fed chair jay powell and the big jobs report coming friday. apple hit way nearly $2 billion antitrust fund allegedly favoring its own streaming service over rivals. out of the eu. details ahead. and opec+ hopes to keep crude production cut for longer. asking about how this decision

could ripple through the worldwide energy markets as the time hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. and welcome back to "squawk box" right here on c nbc. live from the market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen. andrew is off today but here we go. it's a monday and so far not a whole lot of movement, but you do see red arrows. dow futures off by 115 at this hour. weakened during the course of the morning. s&p futures down by about 7. nasdaq indicated off 8.5. treasury yields higher. ten year above 4.2. two year at 2.56 and bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. bitcoin pushing higher.

up almost 4% this morning above 65,000. 65,241. among today's top business stories the european union's competition enforcer fining apple for allegedly favoring its own business over rivals. upset over apple's 30% fees and apple prevented music streamers from informing users of payment options outside of the apple store. apple said it would appeal. macy's increased buy out- out-outbuyout bid. brigade capital management, macy's rebuffed the firm's prior offer of $21 a share as too low. macy's says it will review the new offer. see that stock up by more than 15%. still trading well below the

offer at $20.79. and lawmakers releasing details of six budget bills needed to keep government agencies funded and head off a partial shutdown this coming weekend, but the bills will likely face opposition from the republican freedom caucus. half the battle. congress still has to pass the other six spending bills before march 22nd. those seen at the trickier part of all this. over to our senior markets commentator mike santoli, and, mike, i don't know what you're watching this morning. worried about apple. finally hit the law of large numbers? mike? >> well i don't know if you have to worry about apple too much. also, not really what the law of large numbers means. one of my pet peeves. >> tell me. >> well, just -- >> can't go to the sky. not double. >> base effects are so big. exactly. so, no. i don't think that's necessarily true. if that's the case it also should be hitting microsoft.

i think in a lull. not been a growth story in a long time. what i think is interesting, proven out multiple times over the last say 15 years in the iphone era that apple is not really always a bellwether for the broad market. kind of goes its own way, in sprints, consolidates for long periods of time. s&p 500 able to really shake it off at this point. yes, taking a breather today but one of the stronger four-month returns seeing in the s&p 500 in a very long time. rare. up 1,000 points from the late october low. just about 25%. obviously you've been able to say overbought a few weeks now. shrugged off often seasonal weakness in late february. so far so good. although, again, you have to believe you're in for a breather. why have we been able to do this? some of the concerning i think beginning of the year, one, market too doepend on the on mea caps. not helped. including apple. disproven to a degree.

two, this idea that we need the fed to cut rates soon for the market to hold up. also seems not the case. look at the mid-cap index, because it kind of tells you. people worried about the russell 2000. not broke into a new high. this is a three year midcaps. okay. just slightly above that high from late 2021. things are starting to come around. the market's broadening out somewhat grudgingly. also gotten into this real embracive risk and retail investors trading a con of opt -- ton of options. a good proxy for what smaller investors are doing. see what's happening in bitcoin and other crypto pap strong stock. vertical. have to be at least aware we're in what i call the "belief phase" of the bull market. no longer fighting it. the question when it tips into euphoric. eye of the beholder stuff. don't have the case it's really super overdone. joe? >> all right, mike.

thanks. very beginning what could be interesting in the next five days ending on the jobs report friday. thanks. joining us now to talk markets and specifically the behavior he's seeing from retail investors is joe masoli. charles schwab director trading services education. and joe, pick up where mike left off. just talked about this idea that retail investors are really embracing risk right now and trading a lot of options and other things. is that how you see it? >> hey, becky. good morning. to a certain extent i can agree with mike on that. what i would say, though, is we have a monthly activity index called the stacks. the schwab trading index measuring behavior. so it's behavioral and what we see, we did see an uptick in february relative to january. but i do want to take a step back and say that the uptick we

saw is still moderately low compared to some of the highs we saw in 2021, and what's interesting is had we look at that number itself, it takes into account, as mike was talking about options, takes into account leverty etfs and what we see right now is clients are long, long the market. buying dips. they're buying equities, but not levering up. i think that's a key point to make. that we're not seeing fomo with our clients at this point. what we're seeing longer market. selective in buying. and choosing information technology. that's the sector they're hitting up now. >> fits into the other part mike said. maybe in the bleach selief sect the euphoria yet? >> 100% agree. there is a belief. i look as opposed to the flash number i look at the trend.

four-month trend bottomed in october, november. riding that trend where i believe investors are feeling more confident but selective in buying. not buying across the board. you guys mentioned the mega caps and can this rally continue without the mega caps? i think it can, because at least what we're seeing from our investors is they've kind of shifted a little more towards the chips. the big buys we saw nvidia, amd, smci, arm. trying to ride that momentum, that a.i. momentum. how long that lasts we'll see. but they've been successful so far. >> if stacks, your monthly tracking index called stax looks whether people are using margin giving it ay whoer rating. usually around 35 to 70 falls somewhere in there. >> correct. >> more margin activity gives it a higher number. does a higher number correlate also with bad things potentially happening in the market as people get more and more

leveraged and something breaks? >> i mean, i don't know if you can make that direct correlation but i would say this is why i feel as mike said you mentioned it's the belief stage as opposed to the reach stage. right? the reach stage when you see levering up, dipping into margin. you know, buying the leverty etfs and high call activity in the options market. i think we are starting to see agena little bit of that activity in's options market. look what we see on the cibo put call ratio. not showing something in the 40s where i would be concerned. i right around 60. it is reaching. one thing gives me a little pause is the lack of hedging activity. i'm seeing that, institutional and retail side. it's hard. because as a hedger you've lost money the last two years hedging. i understand where clients,

whether institutional or retail don't want to pay for the hedges, but i do think, though, when you see the markets at all-time highs you see, you know, breadth flattening out and then you see a little divergence maybe on relative strength. probably makes a little sense right now to look for some of that hedging. >> yeah. i mean -- how would you, if this is not near the peaks you saw back in 2020, 2021, where is it? haven't even put a number on what's showing now. >> right now at 47 65 up three points from january. all-time high you mentioned 70s in 2021. got a ways to go before getting to that. important to recognize when looking at the stats relative to s&p 500. stats can go up with the s&p 500. if it, if the ascent is slower than the s&p 500 that means

clients are still long, still buying. i mentioned earlier, not reaching and not levering up to do so. in this market i think that's wise. >> okay. joe, thank you. joe mazzola. >> thank you. coming up, speaking with elon musk's biographer walter isa isaacson. and next latest on the extended oil production cuts from opec+ members with rbcs helene mccaul. heading to break check out shares of microcomputer ugg maker deckers outdoor. two companies joining the s&p 500 prior to the market open on march 18th and replace whirlpool and zion bankcorporation respectively. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. the futures this morning under pressure at least for the dow at this point. down by about 120 points. s&p futures down by 5. nasdaq positive up about 8 points. wti crude trading highest since early november.

over the weekend saudi arabia, russia and other opec+ producers announced they will extend voluntary crude production cuts until end of the second quarter. joining us now for what this means for overall oil market. global head of commodity strategy and managing director at rbc capital markets. good to see you. first of all, anybody cheating, do you believe that some less than others, or believe that they're going to follow through with what they said? >> i might think the most important thing we think about opec is they look more unified. the most important producer saudi arabia, is going to continue with its million barrel a day unilateral cut. the lollipop and the rest of the group may not be quite at perfect as saudi arabia but not an astroeshs situation. not facing a situation with extreme cheating like in years' past. some better than others but the group seems to be better

together. saudi arabia looks to continue to be balancing this market. >> just seems, helina if i told an oil watcher a year ago that the ukraine war would be dragging on but you're going to add in all the conflict in the middle east with the houthis and the u.s. economy's not going to go into a recession. in fact, going to look like it's upticking. seems like all of those factors would have us maybe at 100, and we're not. i don't -- and the cuts and everything else. can you explain it to me? >> i think, joe, look, a sense with the russia/ukraine war we'd see significant disruption. we talked 3 million barrels a day off the market. that did not materialize. i think you have a lot of market participants who are looking at this war in the middle east saying, yes, we have tempers diverted. one sunk over the weekend.

tankers. by and large oil is still making it to the market. they're still in this "show me" situation. they want to see a physical disruption and then you had really strong u.s. production growth last year surprising the upside nap said, i was just in london for ie week and there is more optimism now. people are looking at the physical market saying looking tighter. a sense the u.s. is not going to be a million barrels again in terms of growth. sub500,000. i think sentiment is starting to turn, but, again, we're not seeing yet the runaway path to 100. >> what about china? hilena, does that answer it a little? in terms of demand, is it down in china? year over year? >> no. i mean, joe, i think this is a situation where everyone thought it was going to be a grand reopening for china last year, and chinese, there was growth, but it wasn't as spectacular. i do think if we look at import data for china it remains -- constructive. not blockbuster, but a

divergence between this sort of china macro worry and what we're seeing on the oil side. again, coming back from london, coming back from saudi arabia the week before, i think there is sort of green chshoots about the oil market. i don't see it caught up in bearish sentiment as even a couple months ago. >> test only -- almost 80? going to just head back down to the trading range we've been in? 70 to 80 or do you see it 80 to 90 maybe? >> we have 85 for brent back half of the year. important to watch, joe, think about what catalyst did, see what happens in the middle east. biden administration working so hard to get a cease-fire before the start of ramadan. real questions about, will think war potentially expand to lebanon? and iranians signaled if it becomes invasion of lebanon, that's their red line. i think we can't write off

middle east defy destruction risk yet. >> u.s. production. you said that, why would it not continue at $79? why wouldn't people be -- everything stay open? >> again, it's not that we're saying, joe, u.s. production is not going to grow. it's a question were gains we saw last year due to particular, unique circumstances not replicated this year. again a view you're going to have more modest u.s. growth. now if we got something that surprised to the upside, again, last year did surprise the upside. everyone talked about capital discipline, but we weren't seeing 13 million barrel as day again and look what we saw last year. along with strong growth out of brazil, gaia and canada. again, i think people are saying the u.s. will grow but not make it, cause by surprise like last year with a banner u.s. year. >> all right. finally, we've got one guy run hoog s

who says shut down fossil fuels industry and another saying drill, baby, drill, and so bashar b -- then again, prices high neff, producer going to produce. do what they do. does it matter who's sitting in the white house next year? >> certainly matters rhetorically. we saw what happened with u.s. lng exports. republican administration would not have taken that type of pause, but end of the day you're right. the biden administration came in said they would keep it in the ground. caught with higher oil prices and energy prices potentially were like, put the money in the ground. end of the day the biden administration had encouraged u.s. production. had release from the spr, facing energy prices. interesting to see if there's a change on iran policy, because you have people around president trump saying take a much tougher line on iran and reimpose energy sanctions. >> a good beat. in london, vienna.

>> saudi arabia! >> that's, that can be -- i don't know. maybe that's -- >> yeah. i know. i like going! >> okay. >> yes! >> all right. i think it's a cool beat. smart. hilena, thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. when we come back, boeing looking into buying aircraft fuselage maker spirit aerosystems. what that could mean for each company, and for shareholders. got a reminder as we head to a break right now. don't miss an exclusive interview with target ceo brian cornell tomorrowal alt 7:00 a.m eastern time. quarterly results already of invests. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc. ps are mind-blowi! they collect hundreds of data points like hrv and rem sleep, so you know all you need for recovery. and you are? i'm an investor...in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to... nasdaq 100 innovations like...

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welcome back, everybody. proxy advisor institutional

services offering a new es g skeptics option according to executives. permission to provide a wide array of voting policy changing. iss currently offers seven types of specialty voting guidelines beyond the benchmark like climate focus groups or religious funds. iss last year added borderline guidelines opposing many esg resolutions though the new offering may appeal to clients who want to go even further against esg. >> pretty funny story. >> yeah. >> isn't it? >> yeah. want to be anti -- >> probably better returns. boeing in talks with spirit aerosystems. really jl i knew that. rising on that news -- >> all comes full circle. >> phil lebeau, it does. and called it either way. right? a good business. >> it is a good business.

somebody who once worked in wichita many, many, many moons ago talking early '90s covering aviation, i remember when spirit airlines part of boeing and the leadership at boeing said, spin this off. get rid of it.bringing them bac in. can't blame them given number of problems facing the last three, four years especially with a product coming out of spirit aerosystems. this probably friday both companies confirming in talks, though the price is unclear at this point. here's the pro behind this. closer oversight for boeing. look, spirit has been the game that can't shoot straight over the last several years. they need to do even greater oversight. really need to do an overall. the con is, fix their own problems in washington. now you want to take on fixing the problems at spirit aerospace as well or aerosystems? boeing, remember, look at spirit, injected $100 million

into spirit. they're 70% of the revenue at spirit. so they needed to prop them up to a certain extent. prop is probably not the right word there but needed to assist them and adjust the deliveries over the next couple years. look at spirit as well as boeing and what we've seen here since, go back last five years. last time spirit was profitable, 2019. for dave calhoun, asked about them. in fact, asked during the last earnings report saying, yeah. did vertical integration go too far? probably. it what it is. by that means buy it, fix. do a complete overhaul and have a better say in terms of what happens. boeing released a statement saying we believe the reintegration of boeing and spirit ire oh systems manufacturing operations would further strengthen aviation safety improve quality and interests of customers employees and shareholders. look at boeing and spirit, look at those stocks, they've got to

go back to 2019. last time that spirit was profitable. boeing 70% of revenue last year. airbus the other 30%. a facility in europe, would have to work out a way of clearly spinning that. >> what was the rationale to get rid of it in the first place? >> everybody said, we'll be the integrator. >> what does that mean? >> take parts and integrate everything and then -- >> going to be responsible for the parts? quality of the parts? >> correct. which is -- if you ask people right now, general investors. say to them what's the problem at boeing? aww, can't build the 373 max. one problem after another. constantly announcing that something was wrong. they've got to check it. where most of those problems have come from? spirit. nobody says that. nobody says you know their supplier spirit had problems and that's hurting boeing. looked ed strictly at boeing. >> problems with it. spirit hasn't been profitable five years while all of these problems are coming out. talking about a very long-term

fix for boeing. takes it back in-house. >> yes. remember, they haven't pulled guidance for $10 billion and free cash flow annually in 25, 26. haven't reiterated or pulled it. wonder can they hit the target bringing in spirit? it's going to cost them. >> and what about the -- nuremberg leave? >> 2019? calhoun came in december 2019. >> been there five years? >> i would say dave's been there three and a half years. maybe came in '20. >> down 54% in stock? >> by the way, mention an exclusive on "money movers" talk be with report isom exclusive before talking about what's going on this year. you don't want to miss what he has to say in terms of outlook for american airlines.

>> profit return. >> i'm not arguing with you. >> all right. thank you. >> thanks, phil. >> you bet. when we come back, elon musk's biographer walter isaacson help us make sense of the lawsuit against sam altman. space x launched its first nasa late to of 2024. bound for the international space station lifted off from kennedy space center at 10:53 p.m. eastern time. four crew members onboard. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis, help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley.

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welcome back to "squawk box." futures this morning now flat on the nasdaq. down 155. you were that close, wasn't he? that -- that close to -- >> almost walked away. >> wanted a cup of coffee. >> pulls back in. >> breaking news. jetblue merger with spirit airlines. the other spirit. >> yes. >> can't let you walk away.

>> called it a mutual agreement. spirit putting out a note saying terminating the proposed merger with jetblue. look, not a huge surprise. i think this is what people ultimately thought was going to happen. that, a., wasn't going through after shot down once by the doj. and while they appealed it, very few thought the appeal would work and so now jetblue pays spirit $69 million. that's the end of this courtship, but what's interesting here. remember when jetblue, robin hayes adamant we need them. need them so much we'll give a special dividend on a monthly basis to spirit shareholders. remember that y. yeah. >> guess how much they paid since that story? >> $29 million. >> a nice chunk of change, if you were a spirit shareholder that -- >> $500 million to go away. >> what's going on. now the question becomes for spirit, okay. what do you do? because you're, burning cash,

losing money. ted christie is sharp. know what's he's doing. in a flooded market. more judicious in the first quarter but it's a tough market for them and there are more than a few people said don't make the merger go through, how do you survive? >> by the way -- >> can you imagine? >> ted making comments saying remain dmft our future at a successful independent airline. we'll see. the shares still holding for spirit airlines. jetblue shares up. >> the jetblue shareholders once the doj said no they did not want this could, continue the appeal. joanna garrity ceo of jetblue. >> new ceo. >> yeah. once that decision was made, like, let's get back to blocking, tackling, running an airline the right way and quit this focus on mergers, alliances, et cetera. >> phil, thank you.

>> you bet. latest point of contention in the race shading future of a.i. technology elon musk suing openai and its ceo sam altman claiming they've abandoned the start-ups original mission create for benefit of all humhu humanity. relationship with altman bring in walterize,en, perella weinberg cnbc contributor maybe most importantly in this context, his book "elon musk" for that book had unprecedented access to the an ptra tra -- an pral neer two years. a slow train wreck taking lake. just the latest. those who know who not surprised. >> absolutely. surprising me traveling with him

two years is how focused he was on a.i. and goes back to 2012 when he was worried that deepmind is going to be sold to google and he was worried that two big companies google and microsoft might some day control a.i. so he and sam altman started openai, and what musk wanted was it to be opened. open source, and nonprofit. what they decided at the beginning. why he's so upset is because obviously you know, openai is no longer open source and microsoft has 49% of a for-profit arm of it. exactly a year ago soon after he took over twitter. in february 2023, he summoned sam altman toal twitter hea

headquarters bring the founding documents. outrageous musk said he funded a lot of openai as a non-prompt and now sam turned it into a for-prost. near end of my book there's a wonderful scene where elon musk asked me back to austin and we sit outside by a backyard and he said, i've got to start my own a.i. company, because this is a disaster, what's happening with openai. >> so for documents and memos seen from inside openai just this morning, all saying this is basically sour grapes from elon musk, because he's no longer involved. what would you say to that? >> well, certainly he has his back up. he's no longer involved. at that meeting i talked about, end of the book a year ago, altman says, do you want shares? want shares in openai? he says, no.

musk says, ooimi'm not looking money. wanting to keep it so microsoft and google don't dominate the industry and he started his own a.i. company. i think musk does things because he's got a pretty strong passion for what he feels has to be done on a.i. so i would say calling it just sour grapes doesn't nearly get to the depths of the passion that musk feels about this. >> big questions that have been raised, walter, about whether elon musk can bring this suit. i mean, obviously, looking at founding documents, that's the best legal argument that they have in this. right? but others in the nonprofit world say that typically if you're questioning whether a nonprofit has strayed from its mission, that's really the responsibility and duty of attorneys general. we've spoken with others this morning saying they hope this lawsuit brings attention and maybe put pressures on some of those political types like an a.i.? >> yeah. you're seeing the attorneys general look at this and, yes,

the law is pretty unclear in the sense of, can you sue a nonprofit for becoming a for-profit? but as musk said, wait a minute. if this can happen, anybody can do it instead of saying i'm going to raise money with venture capital to start a company, you say i'm starting a non-frost. give me tax deductible dollars and then turn it into a profit-making thing. it doesn't smell right. >> correct. i wonder what you think the next logical step is? what a court does with this lawsuit and what it spurs from politicians who would be much more interested in setting up -- it has potential for bringing discovery for any of those precisions looking at this? >> yeah. i'm not sure this lawsuit will ever go to a full trial, and he's not asking for very clear remedies. if you read the lawsuit. he's not saying he wants huge amounts of money. i guess he'd get the money he put into the nonprofit back, but that's not what he wants. he wants it to make it so that

once again it become as nonprofit and that, it breaks the contract with microsoft. if you read deep into it, it says, that contract with microsoft should be null and void now, because chatgpt 4 and beyond will be artificial general intelligence. a very technical thing, but it's not just with what they contracted for. it's going to be able to do almost anything. going to be able to reason and have intention and this frightens musk and he said, he wants to remedy for openai no longer to have this contract with microsoft. >> raising pretty serious questions for investors involved in all sides of this. microsoft's about the biggest technology company out there. one of the biggest public companies out there taking on sam altman and owe a.i. you see front of the a.i. race. all of this happening with one of the world's richest men on the other side of this. how does this break down and

what do you hear in terms of i guess scuttle from other investor classes on this? >> you know, for 12 years, musk has been worried about jut two or three companies dominating the a.i. space. and when he and altman started meeting 10, 12 years ago, they said the more companies that get into it the safer it's going to be. now, that's a philosophical argument. i think you read isaac and other science fiction, and he even talked to president obama about it. so what his main worry is, is that the way this is all shaking out, you're going to have google and microsoft totally dominating this industry. so he's going to do whatever he can to make sure especially when it gets to what i called it artificialgeneral intelligence,

agi. he has advantage. 8 million flames of video from tesla cars. the type of thing you can train real-world a.i. like robots. he wants to make sure that this is much more of an open process, not dominated by microsoft and google. >> walter, i think about all the things, huge things, elon musk is dealing with that he's thinking about every single day. whether that be tesla, spacex, twitter. the delaware court system. openai. where does this rank in his level of importance? if this is something he thinks is the end of humanity, where do you think he would put this versus finding a way to mars all of these other things? >> i think two things that rank high for him. one is safe artificial intelligence. this ranks real high. the other is getting humanity back into space. you talk about him juggling a lot of things. you showed it earlier in the show. at 10:30 last night they sent,

spacex, four astronauts into the international space station. nasa hasn't been able to do that since it grounded the shuttle. phil talking about boeing. boeing has problems with the 737 max. but it also, in 2014, got contract to send astronauts below earth's orbit and boeing has yet to be able to send astronauts to the space station. whereas spacex, got a contract bid. i think, i personally believe that x.com, twitter, is a bit, a distraction for him. >> i think so, too. >> on which he were focus -- in effect, a.i. >> i understand why you wrote your book on him after writing on people like benjamin franklin. >> in the book ends with a the launch of starship trying to get to mars. the first test launch and with him deciding to start his own a.i. company. and that sort of qucrystallizin

the focus he has right now. >> walter, thank you. >> thanks. good to be with you, becky. mars is far off. i think keeping twitter open and -- that's even more noble and more important. coming up, apple getting lit with a nearly $2 million music-related streaming fund. this morning, much more on that after a break. and spirit airlines resumed training after jetblue announced termination of a merger agreement with the airlines. the shares are down, as you might expect. we'll be right back. , char! - okay! - love it! umm... first word. - tonsillitis! - nostril! uh-uh... bill! uh-huh... - hip-hop! - limping! mmhmm! medical bills! uh-huh! - pancakes! - cash! who pays you cash when you have medical bills? grrr! no idea. [tapping] gap! the gap left by health insurance? who pays cash to help close that gap? aflac! oh, aflac! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover at aflac.com

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empower. what's next. 6 . news this morning, the european commission hitting apple with a nearly $2 billion fine for allegedly favoring its over streaming services over others like spotify. nvidia breaking above a $2

trillion market cap. doug clinton, deepwater asset management, managing partner, and it's -- earlier actually, doug, saying, the inflection point is nvidia now taking some leadership away from apple at this point? >> i think probably is. i mean, i think someone said this the other week. the market is really all about nvidia right now. i think as long as nvidia continues to show this -- it's seemingly unstoppable fundamental strength in their business. i think the market in general can keep working. and so, aside from nvidia, i think you also see this with microsoft versus apple. microsoft now is bigger than app approx le, so it's about that transition to that a.i.-first world and the most a.i.-focused companies are benefitting. >> looking at the history of technology, i'm trying to figure out how apple bridges the move

to a.i., and in the past, we've seen leading tech companies that, for whatever reason, were supplanted by new entries in really important arenas. i mean, microsoft, somehow, doesn't seem like it was ready for maybe social media and some of those things. here it is again, but is apple up to the task of living in the a.i. world in terms of leadership? >> i think they are, joe. and we're going to learn a lot more later this year at wwdc. i don't think it's been unintentional. the last few weeks, the last month or so, we've heard tim cook talking more about this large language model project that they have been working on, talking more about a.i., using the word. last year, it almost felt like apple thought a.i. was a bad word. now we're hearing them talk more specifically about a.i., and not only that. they're putting their money where their mouth is.

they have reorganized what was their titan car project to focus on a.i. i think when we get to june, we start to hear what apple has been working on in a.i., we'll see whether or not they're up to the task. i do think they will be. they do have a history of generating these sort of magical products that combine hardware and software, and so if they can figure out a way to do it again with a.i., i think they can still be a winner. >> a.i. -- or, nvidia, it's very arcane, exactly how everything works, but the case has been made that there's a difference between setting up the a.i. and then deploying it and that maybe upstarts or competitors are going to make inroads in, you know, in that second step. what's it called? inference? it's very arcane. >> training and inference. >> what is it? >> training and inference. yeah. you train the model and then do inference when somebody puts a prompt into chatgpt. >> so, you can get cheaper chips

and maybe not as sophisticated to do the inference. i mean, is that -- is there going to be more inference versus setting up the models? in other words, is there a competitive threat some day to nvidia? >> it's hard to really see that playing out. we like to think about things in terms of odds. so, if you had to set odds on it right now, today, odds are, in five years, i think nvidia is still the market-leading, the dominant player in creating a.i. chips. we do think there's a chance that some competitors can come in and do inference and maybe even specific kinds of inference, so inference on the edge, specifically, so actually on a device, for example, versus inference in the datacenter are sort of two different use cases. in the datacenter, you don't have to think as much about power consumption. when you're on a device at the edge, you might be working on a mobile phone battery, and that means power really matters. i think there are some use cases like that.

we've invested in a company called rain. they're producing chips that are focusing on some of those edge use cases. i think that's the one area where somebody could come along and disrupt nvidia, but i would say the odds are nvidia's still in a really great place competitively. >> got to do more research. i'll use my commodore computer and look up some of this stuff. >> more firepower in your iphone. >> still waters run deep. you're deep water. you're not related to muddy waters? >> no, we respect the muddy waters. we respect all waters. >> smoke on the water. >> smoke on the water. thanks, doug. see you later. when we come back, we're going to talk markets and get you ready for the first trading today of the week. stay tuned. you are watching "squawk box," and this is cnbc. dow futures now down by about 170 points.

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a little more than half an hour to go before the first opening bell of the week. joining us right now in the markets is joann, partner and portfolio manager at advisors capital management. how are you feeling about things right now? this rally has continued to roll

on, people asking questions, but you also have some strategists on waull street raising their price expectations for the year. i think the latest i saw was bank of america now looking for 5,400 for the s&p this year. how are you feeling about things? >> yeah, becky, you know, the economy's in really good shape, so there's good foundations out there. we don't really play the game of trying to pick where the s&p is going to go, because that's not where our clients are invested. we invest in individual stocks, so at this point in time, we've seen certainly the growth from the tech side, but there are a lot of opportunities out there that we see right now as we're coming off a year of really challenging markets for some areas of the global economy, in particular, look at health care. i mean, look at how challenged it was for the tool companies, the analytical tool companies like thermo or brooker when interest rates shot up last year and spending was curtailed. there's opportunities for the investor to go beyond tech at

this point, and we think some of those are good places to be, but also industrials. people are really overlooking the opportunity there. secular growth because of the infrastructure spending bill. step back from what is the market going to do, and look at where the opportunities are, because there's some very attractive valuations that can build a portfolio for the long-term investor. >> we're almost out of time, but if health care was a challenge because of higher interest rates, is your idea of looking at it now on the assumption that interest rates will come down this year? >> we're a little cautious about that, becky. we think eventually they'll come down, but right now, inflation is pretty persistent. last year, there was a lot of inventory digestion that took place. that's the thing that's now out of the way, and we're starting to see that come back. i think results were a good signal and their guidance, not so much for this quarter, but it looks pretty good for the second half of the year, and we're starting to see that show up in invest every enthusiasm for those health care stocks, so it's more than just about interest rates. we're pretty cautious, because we see inflation is going to be

persistent. we think is fed is going to take a very cautious view towards cutting interest rates. we think the market is a little too optimistic about that at this point in time. >> thank you very much. joann feenny. folks, that does it for us today. join us back here tomorrow. right now, it's time for "squawk on the street." ♪ good monday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber at post nine of the new york stock exchange. nasdaq futures stealing some love from the broader markets as we set up for a big stack of news this week. sell-sideconferences. our road map begins with stocks in this ongoing a.i.-fueled rally. b of a ups its target for the year. and the nasdaq looking to build on fresh ecords. plus, as usual, we're keeping an eye on shares of apple. they're pulling ba