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. it's a monday. last week, we did see a down day on friday. nasdaq 100 was down for two weeks in a row. right now, you will see s&p indicated up 20. dow futures are off 10. if you look at the major averages for the year to date. it looks like we are looking at pretty good numbers. the s&p is indicated up 7% for this quarter. the nasdaq is over 6.5%.

the dow is the laggard. it is up 2.75%. the treasury yields have been something of interest with the hotter than expected cpi and ppi numbers. ten-year is 3.4%. the two-year is 4.71%. bitcoin is something we are watching closely. it is up 60% year to date. $67,872. >> it has been volatility. did you have any corned beef? >> i did not. i had irish soda bread. >> green beer? >> nope. did not have any. >> green bagel? >> nope. we wore green. >> parades? i like it better during the week. >> i do, too. i think i'm more likely because the kids are in school and get more excited about it. we did set a leprechaun trap.

if it would have been a tuesday? >> yeah. tuesday. apple in talks with google to build and license the gemini a.i. into the phone. they are in active negotiations to result in gemini powering features to be released by the iphone later this year. apple has haeld discussions wit openai. we will let you know if we hear anything. the wall street journal is investigating if meta facilitated and profited from the illegal sale of drugs. according to the report, prosecutors in virginia sent subpoenas last year and have been asking questions as part of the grand jury probe. meta is working to remove the

content from the services and has been working to screen advertisers that violate rules with the promotion and sale of drugs. the biden administration is calling on the senate to move quickly on the bill to force tiktok's parent to sell the social media company. the call by the national security advisor john kirby yesterday commees after the hou cleared the bill last week with full support. chuck schumer has not decided to bring the vote to the floor. there is a second package of funding bills needed by the house to avert a shutdown. on the squawk planner, the fed kicks off the two-day policy meeting with the conference set for wednesday. the central bank is widely expected to hold rates steady. it will also update the dot plot

or projections of individual committee members for when there might be cuts. some fed watchers say the fed could forecast fewer rate cuts after the succession of hot inflation prints. reports this week on general mills and kb homes and micron. we will hear from fedex and lululemon. now to the economic report -- a lot of of things in this economic report. the person running it. advisors to president trump presented him with a short list of candidates to be chair. you have one job. >> i liked your this is so boring. i can't stay away to run the

teleprompter. >> up your delivery. >> adviser steve moore and art laffer met with trump at mar-a-lago last week. this reminded me of cheney helping w. they gave three names, arthur laffer and kevin hassertt and kevin warsh. laffer did not include the names. you know hassett who was in the last administration. laffer advised president reagan. the adviser considered other

names that did not make the list was former world bank president david malpass and former fed judy shelton. she failed to win confirmation when she was no, minated. she is just too trumpy. i'm not sure what that means. i don't think it is -- it is a p pejorative. >> i don't know where to go with this. hot tpotato at 6:00 on a monday. >> did you see trump said something about the auto industry? spent two minutes talking about the auto industry. china comes here. mexico. if we don't do tariffs, auto industry is in trouble. this would be a bloodbath for

the auto industry. that doesn't matter for anybody. >> if he is not elected. >> it doesn't matter. in this environment right now, i tell this story all the time. when we said we had president biden on or when he was running and he said i'm going to -- what are you going to be like, mr. biden? i'm going to be joe biden. every right wing news organization said that he said i'm going to beat joe biden as if he didn't know who he was running against. this is the same thing. you don't need fake news. dredge has lost its mind. i don't want to give it a click. sometimes they have stuff on it i want to see, but i'm not going to click it because they're so despicable. i saw apparently trump is talking about a nuclear war because he was having guacamole. he said this guacamole is a

bomb. that's where we are right now in the thus cycle. >> you have eight more hunmonth >> you don't need a.i. they will spoon feed their own version of fake news. >> any media outlet will spin it. >> thank you for being so responsible and mature. >> me? >> no. mainstream media. you are responsible. mainstream media could care less because it reminds me of the new york times who said the trump guy is different. anything goes. we need to stop him. normally we would be journalists, but we need to be activists. he is so beyond the pale. i saw something about the

journal used to say never get involved in political decisions. now saying it is our duty to endorse one candidate or the other. we are just going down a very bad path. let's talk about news from russia. vladimir putin winning another six-year term as president after he claimedthe landslide win in the election with no real opposition. at the conference yesterday, nbc's keir simmons asked putin about the death of alexi navalny in prison last month. putin, who rarely speaks navalny's name had this to say. >> translator: as for mr. navalny, he has perished. that is always a sad event. we had other instances where people died in prison. has nothing like that ever happened in the united states? it has happened and not just once. by the way, this will be unexpected, butperished, i was told by some of my

colleagues, that there is an idea to exchange mr. navalny for some people in prison in western countries. believe it or not, the person talking to me hardly finished their sentence when i said i agree. just on one condition. we will exchange him for him to never come back. let him stay there. that's it. unfort unfortunately, the thing that happened happened. that is life. >> thnavalny's supporters alleg putin had him killed to thwart the imminent prisoner swap. >> it is tough to watch. >> to listen. >> it is. what we were just talking about, we like to feel vastly superior to the propaganda. i don't feel vastly superior at

this point. thank god for twitter. thank god for x. elon weighed in on that. thank god. you might get a shred of unvarnished news. nvidia kicking off the key developer conference today. we will tell you what to expect next. later, the march madness field is set after every great number one team has lost the last few games, except uconn. we will talk streaming and sports and gambling at bottom of the hour. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com.

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nvidia kicking off the a.i. developer conference today. let's find out what investors can expect. joining us is the founder and managing partner. there should be a lot of information out of this, doug. what do you expect? >> i think the big thing that everyone is looking for, joe, is the announcement of the b 100. indiv nvidia's newest accelerator chip. it is said to be 2x faster. it will cost probably 20% to 30% more than the h200.

you are getting 2x the performance. you are paying 20% to 30% more. vi nvidia is trying to make this pitch to others building the infrastructure that they can get better chips from nvidia at a better price although it is a higher price. >> does this help? nvidia has a moat in certain parts of a.i. with design. maybe not as much as deployment of it. does this help in terms of beating back the competition which you have to think is coming and on the horizon? >> amd has been a ferocious competitor. they put out their high-end chip last year. with the new b100, we will see on the memory side which is the

difference over amd with the last chip and what nvidia has in the market currently. to your point, joe, it does put them back in the clear pole position when we get the b100 announcement. the ecosystem as well is the other big thing which has always been the advantage for nvidia. the software system and obviously everyone is used to using nvidia hardware. that is a really powerful advantage. they do still need to stay in the lead on the technology front. i think today's conference will show they are still there. >> there are certain components where you don't need to pay for nvidia's chips, right? how much of the deployment or build out of a.i. can you use commodity chips to help? >> when you think about training

versus inference, those are the two workloads for a.i. compute. training is when you take a large model like gpt 4 and run the training cycle which costs hundreds of the hl models to tr. you need the high-end chips to get that work done. inference is when you have a trained model and someone asks the model a question. for example, the inference is running that question through the model and getting an answer for customers. in some cases, you can run the inference workloads on different chips. that's where we see the most competition right now directly to nvidia. nvidia can use the lower-end chips for lower-end a.i. workloads. a-40 and a-100 is cheaper than the h-200 right now.

if you are not pbuying the high-end chips to do that work, they are still the leaders with the older edge chips that are still on the market. >> doug, can you talk about super micro? it is going in the s&p 500. its growth is phenomenal. the stock has risen 12-fold. what kind of moat does that company have here? >> it is difficult for us. we don't own it. dell has also performed well in the server space. the issue, in our view, when you think about the server space, it feels more come moditized. it is hard to build a moat with the nvidia chips and having something that you bring to the customers and say you can't get this can get that in other places. we have seen that with strong

dell numbers this year. super micro is an important player in the story. i would be a little bit more cautious on that one because the moat is really hard to justify. >> you had a lot of product knowledge about these things. if i ask openai to help me understand all of the things you just talked about, can it look at itself and tell me all about the products? can it help with my intelligence on this, doug? would you think that would work? >> absolutely. >> i could try that? >> it's argumentative to humans. that's the beauty of a.i. it is not about replacing humans. >> humans who don't understand. >> i need more than augmented. doug, thank you. i'm going to lean on you, i

think. you're available? >> i'm always here. >> good. jim cramer will speak with jensen huang tomorrow on "mad money." when we come back, we are four weeks away from the tax filing deadline. sharon epperson joins us with tax tips right after this. later, we will be joined by former house speaker kevin mccarthy on the deadline to pass a funding bill to avert a shutdown. we will also talk about the tiktok bill and more. "squawk box" will be right back. pts to you. engineering. it is the first e-class made just for you. for you. for you. this is not just design because your e-class... it adapts to you. it recognizes you. understands you. empowers you. energizes you. feels you. it evolves with you. the new e-class. ♪ ♪

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15th due date to file the 2023 income tax returns. we have sharon epperson here with us with what you need to know right now. these are timely tips, sharon. >> it is very important. if you are like most americans, you have yet to file your taxes. if you like to do it yourself, the irs has a way to file for free. this year, the irs launched direct file. a free filing program available to taxpayers in 12 states, including california, texas, new york and florida, and it is an option for taxpayers who earned income from the employer and got a w-2 and claimed the standard deduction. you have to have lived in the state for the full 2023 year. there is no income tax. the free file is another option to get access to the tax preparers at no cost as long as the agi is $79,000 or less. you can file for free at any

income level using fillable forms on the irs web site. if you are looking for savings, home improvement project which saved energy, you may qualify for the 30% of the cost which is a savings of $3,200. make sure any tax breaks you take are reasonable and account for all income and 1099s. don't round up. those are all red flags which trigger the irs to do an audit. if you think you oh, it pays to pay that bill by april 15th before late filing and penalties kick in then you have to add an 8% daily on top of the tax that you haven't fully paid. >> are their ways to lower your tax bill? >> tax credits over deductions. those will lower your tax bill dollar for dollar. you want to take advantage of

those. there are things you can do now. people don't realize you can contribute to a health savings account right now up until april 15th. >> from last year? >> yes. qualified for the 2023 tax year. if you have a high deductible health plan and you qualify for hsa, that's a big advantage. that is a tax deduction. you get the tax-free greowth. an ira or a roth ira, you can contribute until april 15th. >> when you say round numbers can trigger an audit, round numbers up to the dollar? if you don't put the cents on? >> i think people say it was around 5,000. that kind of thing. >> something to look out for here. are you done? >> no. i always do these things and -- no, i'm not done.

>> cobbler's kids never have shoes. >> i will not file for an extension. i'll be done by april 15th. >> i'm done. no, i just finished 2022. >> seriously? >> a couple of months ago. >> if it you file for an extension by april 15th, you have until october 15th. >> you can file for another extension after that one. i think so. >> to have that hanging over your head all the time? sharon, thank you. coming up, we will talk to former vice chair roger ferguson about the upcoming meeng atind when we will see rate cuts, if ever. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: your money is sponsored by empower. get started today at empower.com. ard!! with empower, we get all of our financial questions answered. so we don't have to worry.

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good morning. welcome back to "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square. the dow is down a little. s&p is showing gains this morning. quite a few things on the

docket. not a quiet week at all. there's fed speak, becky, and we have roger ferguson coming up. >> the fed reserve kicks off the t two-day policy icy meeting tomo. we have former vice chairman roger ferguson with us. roger, there was an interesting piece yesterday in "the wall street journal" whether the fed is hitting the brakes hard enough and it started out just on the assumption that things are good right now for home builders and a lot of other areas. that's not what you anticipate if the fed tightened things to the extent that some people complain about. where do we stand right now? is it a situation you want to wait and see what's next or is this a clear path for fed?

>> it is a wait and see situation. the economy is doing well which is a good thing, but inflation appears, perhaps, to be stuck above the 2% level. i think it should be in wait-and-see mode and they will continue to signal no rush to cut which may be disappointing to the market. >> the last thing they heard from chairman powell, we are getting closer to sooner rather than later. that was the testimony he spoke to the senate a week or two ago. you think the last couple of reads on ppi and cpi may have changed that trajectory? >> i think it slowed things down a little bit. it ieye is ironic. they were talking about three cuts in june and this set of dots may indicate fewer cuts or delayed.

i do think that data is probably going to weigh on the policymakers who were uncertain. right now, the data is not supporting an earlier start. supporting a later start. >> it seems to me the treasury market has taken that message. you are looking at the ten-year at 4.3. the ten-year was 4.5 a month ago. it seems like the treasury market has figured that out, but i'm not convinced the stock market has yet? >> i share that view. the treasury market is geared to what the fed is saying on the interest rates, particularly with the two-year and p ththe ten-year. in particular, the indices are geared to a small number of relatively hot stocks. i think we are getting two very different reads.

i think as often is the case, the fixed income market is an tuned to where interest rates are going. they are signaling higher for longer and many hoped earlier. >> if themarkets were baking in before the last couple data points, baking in a june cut, and i heard economists and others move that to july, where are you thinking? is july reasonable or would you say the second half of the year? >> i would certainly be more comfortable saying second half of the year. there is a lot of data to come between now and june and july. i think second half of the year is more likely. certainly, i'm taking my expectation down to likely two cuts. i think they would like to start early for a variety of reasons. i think they want to feel confident that the 2% or something close to the 2% is

there. count the second half of the year. i say july is a possibility. i'm more certain it is likely two cuts as opposed to three that i was thinking a little while ago. >> when you say there are a variety of reasons for why they would like to start sooner, is the presidential election one of them? >> frankly, i think so. they are not interested in getting heavily involved in politics. i think given the tone of this election, it might be nice. they may want to get started and get out of the way so they are not moving meeting to meeting which is discussed in the political realm. at the end of the day, i have a high degree of confidence they will be focused on the incoming data. they are human tbeings and if they get this started sooner, this is a good sign that inflation is under control.

that's what they would like to see. >> that makes sense. i believe it coming from you 100%, roger. what will you be watching this week with the fed meeting if w? what will you be listening for? >> i will look at the dots. try to parse unusually closely chair powell's words during the press conference. he will be walking ap fine line. most of the indications are they like to cut, but he doesn't want to get things out of control and bake in more cuts than they are expecting. we talked about an unusual situation with the great deal of uncertainty. trying to parse carefully without appearing to be more certain is part of the what he will attempt to do. >> basically, they don't want to start rate cuts or stop or

reverse? that is the biggest thing that is determining this? >> that is one of the most important things. we talked many times of some concerns based on history of doing what is a stop-start. once you get going in one direction, to suddenly pivot throws many people off, including the markets itself. i think they want to have, as they he have been saying, higher degree of confidence that inflation is moving closer to the 2% target. i think the little uncertainty of how close they are where early on they were closer and now they are further from that certainty. consequently, they want to diff deliver the message of no rush to cut. >> roger, thank you. great to see you. >> nice to see you. thank you. coming up, the supreme court set to hear arguments in the case that could limit the scope

of the government's power when it seeks to influence social media content. details are next. reminder, you can get the best of "squawk box" in the podcast with "squawk pod." we're coming right back. meet ron. ron eats, sleeps and breathes hoops, but oh how he can nail a software solution. you need ron. ron needs a retirement plan. work with principal so we can help you with a plan that's right for him. let our expertise round out yours.

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the supreme court is set to hear a case today to set limits on what the government can do to influence social media content. eamon javers is here with more. >> joe, oral arguments at the supreme court today where social media company may get clarity around what can be said about public health and election security and more. the case the justices will hear is murphy versus missouri. it was brought on by five

plaintiffs in the state of missouri and louisiana. the biden administration improperly brought on the issues of national importance. they say such jaw-boning doesn't amount to coercion or violations of the first amendment. the lower court judge issued an order banning the administration from communicating with social media companies about key issues. the supreme court has put that implementation on hold until it decides the issue. at stake is a communication on pandemic preparedness and cybersecurity and more. any decision could have sweeping implications. what is interesting here, joe, a conservative court here may want to slap down the biden administration in the last few months, but presidethe ruling c

impact the trump administration. you can imagine a reelected donald trump would want to jaw-bone about his issues. back over to you. >> people in washington always remember that. filibusters and the court. everything. >> yeah. >> it can happen to you. >> after the next election, it may look very different. >> eamon, i was waiting for a javers files. >> yes. not today. >> why? >> i like to keep you in suspense, joe. >> i have a suggestion. when it's not a javers files, what about jibber javers. >> we could do that. >> i have been meaning to bring it up. it's so clever. is that something that you would be on board for here? >> it is hard to tell what is

clever these days. >> well, i've never been able to tell. i made a career of thinking. >> fine line between genius and insanity. >> jibber javers? you like it? >> sure. jibber javers. >> pretty good. >> when it is not weighty enough to be the javers files, but -- >> right. for my comedy segment. >> you are naked. nothing behind you. no branding. nothing. this is where jibber javers. >> this is a giant television screen behind me. >> it doesn't say anything. >> really small to the left. >> i need to go to you for advice first before we do these things, joe. that was my mistake. >> you know how to reach me. thanks, eamon javers. coming up, the brackets are

set. march madness is here. that means viewers are watching from the tvs and devices to catch all of the action and gambling along the way. we get into the big business of the tournament next on "squawk box." >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business. next level moments need the next level network. 's realty! hi! thig sounds incredible. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light. and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting. only at&t gives businesses our best deals on any iphone. get iphone 15 pro on us. (♪♪)

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march madness starts with week with college brackets and action set. joining us with the money to be made is patrick rische from the university of st. louis and

founder of sports impacts. i'm dreaded trying to do the brackets, patrick. i'm not sure why. i guess i know from the last couple weeks that i can't possibly pick who will cover and who will win. night, what happened to houston? iowa state, what was that? can you tell me? >> yeah, there were a lot of surprises and a lot of teams on that bubble on the men's side that were very disappointed that they didn't get in, joe. but you know, this year -- and you alluded to this a little bit in your opening statement, joe, is we don't have brand identities on the men's side anymore because of the one and done, and you juxtapose that with what's going to happen this year for the women's tournament where you've got these wonderful stories, undefeated south carolina. their recent clash literally and physically with lsu, the defending champion. caitlin clark factor. you know, last year the men's finals rating between uconn and

san diego state was the lowest that they had seen in forever, 14.7 million, the women's final on abc was 9.9 million. this could be the first year depending upon how things play out, joe, that you could actually see higher ratings for the women's final than the men's, and it's all about branding. we don't know the men's. it's a revolving door. when these ladies are with their teams for three, four seasons that is a big factor in the branding aspect of women's basketball right now. >> even coaches' sons, a coach's son might leave after one year. jawan howard. that is a point i hadn't even thought of. so when you're there for a year and then you go off to the nba, you don't have the chance to have that, you know, that kind of star power in the march madness. >> not to mention the gelling of the team. >> right. >> i was thinking before i went on this morning, two things,

one, go back to my youth up in good old pottsdam, new york, in the '80s everybody loved the big east basketball. i could tell you names of guys who played on those teams because they were there for three or four years. st. john's, chris mullens, those guys played three and four years. your show, if you had revolving cast of characters every single day, every single week, you would not have the same brand. in women's basketball, and part of this is the wnba requires these players to play and stay for four years. that could be challenged at some point down the road reelly, that forces these young women to go ahead and play three or four years. because of name, image, and likeness, why would they leave? now the best players like the caitlin clarks, they can make six, seven figures before they go pro. >> i really like that analogy

you used. >> it's true. i mean -- >> about us, so we're -- >> it's hard to gel when you're constantly swapping out. >> you would keep, if you were cnbc, you think that they should -- otherwise it would be like cnn on that morning show. who's on that one? does anybody know? >> patrick, did you move? are you still in -- >> yeah, i moved, i moved. >> another great backdrop. >> spring break is -- >> whose house was that? >> this is my house, joe. >> whose house was that out in indian wells. you never came clean whose house that was. >> he said it was family. >> i'm not going to now. >> family. >> spring break is over, so unfortunately i've got to get back to work. the final six weeks grinding it out at wash u st. louis. boy, really excited for the rest of the semester. >> every game's going to be -- okay. we had the tnt, tbs, some

station -- remember how we did that in recent years? >> true tv you're probably thinking of. >> true tv. so how does streaming that i think -- change where we're going to -- >> you can't handle the true tv. sorry, i had to do that. the streaming is going to be more popular than ever before. we're seeing that trend across all of sports. of course the other part of this, joe and becky, that's going to be fascinating, the gambling piece. the american gambling association is estimating 3 billion is going to be bet on this year's march madness. i think quite frankly when to comes back to this popularity in comparing the men's and women's games, the only reasonthe men's games are going to get some of the ratings is the gambling piece. there's more gambling on the women's basketball. it's more about the familiarity of the brands because they've been there for three, four

years. >> when you can see a 15 beat a -- it's impossible. >> i'm filling out my bracket right now. >> part of this goes back to the one and done. when you go back to some of these smaller schools -- i'm going to be filling those out all day today, becky. when you go back to smaller schools where their players have been together for two, three, four years, this is part of the reason these 15, 16 seeds get some of these -- >> there is something to be said for the teamwork and playing together and you know this if you're on a business team, if you're on a sports team. i watch it with my sons' teams. the teams you play with for a while. >> gonzaga, i saw a guy on tv one of the main guys said, i think mcniece -- so how can i possibly -- but gonzaga -- >> mcniece is 30 to 3. >> how many tournaments is this for gonzaga? is it like 24 straight? that's crazy. >> that's another story, just

real briefly on gonzaga, what a great story, and they have been able over the last 20 years to basically put a school on the map because of college sports. >> jesuits, right? >> yes. >> i like that. they got that going for them. >> all right. i don't know, i'm cynical. i guess it's because i know i can't possibly -- i'm just trying to pick one game and i can't do it, so how am i going to do -- and you know, buffett's going to be out with his -- you got to get every single one right. it should be a billion dollars that you win, not a million dollars. why not make it a billion. no one's going to do. >> if it makes you feel any better, you're not alone. if i have to leave on anything, it's joe, becky, and andrew, keep that team together. that's why your brand is as strong as it is. >> thank you, patrick. >> can you come back in tomorrow? you can come on whenever you want? >> i'll be in a different house tomorrow. >> yeah, exactly. >> i think for berkshire buffett

says whoever gets the closest wins $250,000 anyway. >> oh, they co? >> that's okay. >> somebody gets paid off. >> creighton is good. >> i picked them for the first game. >> thinking about it is giving me a headache. >> when we come back, apple and google may partner up to get gemini in the iphone, we'll get into the ai revolution with eight vc founding partner and palantir cofounder joe lonsdale. stick around. we'll be right back.

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alphabet shares rising on a report that apple is in talks to license gemini for iphones. we'll hear from tech investor and palantir cofounder joe

lonsdale about a possible deal and what it means in the fight for ai supremacy. wall street awaits guidance on the fed's rate path. jay powell and company starting a two-day policy meeting this week. we're going to preview. could home buyers see a reprieve in prices due to that national association realtors settling its lawsuit over commissions. we will talk home prices in the housing market as the spring selling season ramps up. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i don't need to tell you who i am or who this is.

>> please do. >> always looking for new viewers. >> okay. >> i'm joe kernen. >> this is becky quick. andrew ross sorkin is off today. he'll be back eventually. here are the futures this morning. we are seeing some sharp upward momentum with the nasdaq. also you can see the s&p is up, but the dow is off just a little. it is another fed week. they come fast and furious. two meetings and a press conference, before that we see 4.3%. been seeing a drift up in the yield on the ten-year as we've had some of those hotter than expected inflation numbers. oil had been in a trading range forever really, but it is above 81 now on wti, and then we saw bitcoin had been above 75,000 for -- now it is below 70, just under 68,000 this morning. apple is reportedly in talks to integrate google's gemini ai

engine into the iphone. according to bloomberg, the two companies are in active negotiations to allow the generative ai tech to power new mobile features with the release of ios 18 later this year. the report adds apple has also held talks with open ai. no comment from apple, google or open ai on that report and no official deal is expected until at least june when apple holds its worldwide developers conference. we'll get reaction to this story and talk ai, big tech and more with investor and palantir cofounder joe lonsdale. that's coming up in just a few minutes. let's talk markets and the fed now, president of yar den any research, we've been talking about nick timiraos's piece if we do get cut this is week. you were on i think about two weeks ago and i think at that point you weren't completely sure either about how many or

when we've seen a couple of inflation data points since then. what's your latest on that? we see something in june or july? >> joe, i've been in the fewer and later camp on the federal funds rate cutting. i never really understood at the beginning of the year why the markets seem to be thinking five, six, seven cuts. i was thinking we should stick with what fed officials were talking about which is two to three. over the past few weeks ide've d my doubts about two to three, not just this past week when we saw hotter than expected inflation. the economy's doing quite well, and inflation i think is still moderating so my mantra is why mess with success. there's really no need for the fed to lower interest rates. so i think fed chair powell and his wednesday presser is going to be a touch more hawkish than

he had been recently, for example, at congressional testimony. >> where's the strength in the economy coming from, ed? it was somewhat unexpected, and where are there beginning to see some signs of some weakness? >> well, i think the main focus always has to be on the consumer, consumers account for 70, 75% of the economy's activities, and i think that's where we've seen the strength and clearly a lot of that has to do with the labor markets. you don't get a recession when employment is at an all-time record high. you don't get a recession when within that you've got construction employment at an all time record high, health care employment at an all-time record high and so on and so forth. there's a lot of strength in the labor market. we keep watching those unemployment claims every thursday and they continue to hover north of 200,000 which is

consistent with an unemployment rate below 4%. i think that's where it is first and foremost. weakness, there's been a lot of talk obviously about commercial real estate. that could present itself over the next couple of years. as things get refinanced. even there there's some signs it's not just across the board weakness. there are some areas of strength within that, so -- and even commercial real estate prices may wbe starting to bottom. it doesn't look all that bad. >> is any of this residual stimulus or fiscal spending or the fed's balance sheet, any of the things that we've talked about in the past? ever since the -- ever since congress flipped, there hasn't been any -- has there been anything? we barely can keep the government open. but is this chips act, inflation reduction act, infrastructure, is any of that playing into this? >> absolutely because that's

another area of strength is capital spending and public spending. we have seen a tremendous amount of onshoring activity, which we've seen in many manufacturing facilities production, so that's been strong. i think it remains strong, and then once they finish building the facilities, they're goingto have to put in a lot of equipment, robotics, automation, and even labor. so i think that's an area of strength. then public infrastructure, there's still a lot of money being committed to roads and bridges and so on, and that is likely to continue, so yeah, that stimulus is still there. by the way, while we're all looking at government's outlays on interest income going up and worrying about it, in the short-term it is an outlay, and there's a lot of people who live on fixed income assets, and they are actually doing extremely well without taking a lot of risks by keeping their money in money market funds or even deposits that are paying more.

>> i guess the infrastructure bill was bipartisan and the chips act was bipartisan. does this present a problem for republicans who have criticized all that spending? in your view it's working at this point? and i mean, we do have 34 trillion to worry about in terms of all the debt we've built up, but is it working near-term? why don't we do more of it then? that seems like a terrible lesson we're learning. >> yeah, that's so-called modern monetary theory idea that the government can spend without limit because it prints its own money and lots of people overseas and the united states are willing to finance the def deficit. i think it's a dangerous trroado go down. i think we've gone down quite a bit in that regard. the main problem clearly is at some point the bond market might

very well care about all the supply of securities. they gave us a hint of that, remember, joe, last summer, august, september, october, we saw the bond yields soar from 4.25% to 5%. so my friends at bond vigilante seem to have gone into a little siesta mode here. they are starting to wake up a little bit. 4.3% on the ten-year. that's the risk. if we get a situation where people worry about inflation again in the bond -- if they worry about it in the bond market again, and they decide that the options are too large, then we'll have a problem again. >> all with possible rate cuts coming, which doesn't make any sense. >> doesn't make any sense. i mean, you know, you can't have a situation where the fed goes from, you know, stepping on the brakes, tapping on the brakes, slamming on the brakes to suddenly stepping on the accelerator, and then combine that with ongoing fiscal

stims stimulus so that the fiscal authorities are stepping on the accelerator. i'm not rooting for rate cuts. i think the economy is doing fine with this level of interest rates. leave it alone. >> equity should continue to trend higher then. >> i still had 5,400, but that doesn't look as awesome as it did a year ago when i was talking about that kind of number, so i think it's time for a pause in the equity rally. i'll be fascinated to see whether there's any more to discount on the ai nvidia situation in the love fest, the ai love fest that nvidia is hosting today through wednesday, and if those stocks go up, watch out because the traders may go the other way anticipating that fed chair powell is going to dial back his talk about dialing back restriction. >> okay, ed, thanks.

>> thank you. >> okay. when we come back, the proxy battle at disney, yale's school of management's jeffrey sonnenfeld said nelson peltz has miscalculated iger's track record. he joins us next to talk about it. later, joe lonsdale will join us to talk all things tech including the reddit ipo, tiktok, and much more. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com.

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visit xfinitymobile.com today to learn more. welcome back, everybody. disney and activist investor nelson peltz are in the midst of a proxy battle for board seats. joining us with more is jeff sonnenfeld, he's senior associate dean for leadership stu studies at the yale school of

management. he's quoted saying that the pelts proxy contest is motivated by the wrong reasons. immaterial to make it clear whose side you're coming down own this. in the last week we had a couple of people who voiced support on the other side, supporting pelts's proxy battle on this. want to give you the opportunity to talk about why you think it's not a great deal for shareholders. >> thanks, becky. i don't have any consultation relationships or any entanglements with disney, not that they offered, but i don't have any. i'm completely conflict free. but what i would say is that there's been a lot of misguided information coming across in the last couple of days that basically, look at the storming of the magic kingdom. you have a genuine wizard with bob iger and then you have an illusionist with nelson peltz with the sleight of hand. if there's two things that people take away from our chat

right now, ias your introductio said before the break, iger's performance is iscalculated it's about 554%, returning $250 billion of shareholder value through his term. the chapek years, his successor, and the second piece of information is that peltz is desperate and he's circling the drain. it's the peltz candle as it melts, he's struggle, and this is desperation vendetta drive as his last flicker of the flames. if you take a look at what he never wants to talk about is that over the course of his holding 68% of his holdings, are down more than considerably. they're way down on the s&p, and the list of companys that he never wants to talk about, down almost like 60%, unilever, ge,

family dollar, msg, wendy's bny melon, mondelez, and his first shot at legg mason. these things have way underperform the s&p, he's a net destroyer of value, and instead he justcreates allthis noise distracting by trying to throw stones at others. >> there is a piece in "the wall street journal" on the front page of the wall street journal this morning taking a look at trion, his firm. it says that they've been losing money, that investors have been pulling money out in recent years. points out that from 2019 to 2023 trion's cumulative return on the flagship investment fund was 59% and that the s&p 500 by comparison was up 87% over that period. trion does say since its inception it has outperformed the s&p 500. >> that's just not true. you look at company after company or in aggregate.

this is why disney pulled out of their pension fund, which is part of vendetta here. as disney complained a couple of years ago when they pulled out back in 2021, that at that point over eight years, they were getting more than 5% below the s&p. what the wall street journal points out and you're right, that piece should be a little bit surprising to jim stewart at "the new york times," they're pointing out that the funds are collapsing. he's had to shutter his uk european fund. he's down 40% if you don't count the money that his friend just put in. he's down 40% in his own investors, and his son-in-law quit or was fired or pushed out, ed garden who was the number two, and has come on air with david faber to talk about how the model is not working. i think that's quite telling. and so this is a guy who's also trying 25 times to get on this board. that's pretty desperate, and you

look at iger's performance, he's up 6%, you know, just, you know, in the first year, but actually, he's up 22% up until now, as we've gone a little bit further. one day alone last month he was up 12%. i've classified them as generals, the second world war was a great triumph for returning generals. steve jobs is that kind of person and michael dell, michael dell's stock was way down. he was down around 70% his first year. he soared since obviously and as howard schultz came into starbucks, they were down about 48% the first year. he soared in three years. it takes three years for these turn-arounds to work, and iger, his stock that he's up compared to jobs, compared to dell, compared to howard schultz, that he's up 22% is astounding. >> jeff, persistence is something that sometimes pays

off. in fact, this piece from the journal today gives one of peltz's personal ten commandments according to quotes his family made, that quote is just make a pain in the ass of yourself. they don't teach persistence in business school. what happens if peltz is elected to this board by the shareholders. how will the company work with that? >> it's a dripping faucet. it's a big distraction. his big tool is not financial returns. he's a net destroyer of value, so he gets away with can be charming at times as we all know, but he gets away with bullying and bravado, and a lot of bluster, but despite that locker room talk, that's what a board has to put up with. so they try to create somebody at one company, at mondelez they created an alternative ceo to absorb his time and attention. you talk to people on the board of say procter & gamble, which did do well while he was on the board, and that's despite him. that's because he suggested

moving the headquarters from cincinnati, and they asked him why, he said i don't know. he said we should move m&a down to the division level. he had no suggestions. already the company was on the right course and he was on the coat tails of that. same at pepsi co. they did well by not listening to him. he wanted to break up international pepsi from domestic pepsi. what a cooky idea. he also wanted to stable together his losing mondelez business, which has been terribly performing under him and put it together with frito lay. that was crazy. so they just ignored him. and that's how they did well. >> jeff, i want to thank you for joining us today, jeff sonn sonnenfeld, and joe, i think it's pretty indicative of what a bitter battle this has been, the guests we've had on over the last three shows pretty bitterly divided on what should happen here to do. jeff stewart was on friday. >> jeff, when did you first start railing about peltz, it

had to be ten years ago. i was always trying to figure out what was going on there. i'm still not sure. what was it with heinz at the time? >> you're right. joe, your memory is scary and you probably remember where i was sitting then and everything. that was with ellencoleman, and that was -- she had like 266% -- >> dupont. >> yeah, dupont. >> soaring over her competitor of course in the chemical industry. but she was doing really well, and in fact, she won the battle, the proxy battle just like the board at, you know, at pp&g. they figured what the heck, it's almost a form of management time and attention extortion just to keep him happy. they put him on and ignore him. if he were to win on this case, he would get at most 2 out of 12 seats, and it's not even his

money. it's mainly ike permonter's money. he's not the guy who built up marvel, that was stan lee. ike per motter was there when they drove it into bankruptcy. he was running the comics division. >> right. >> okay, all right, disney's turned up recently, but a couple of weeks ago it was still -- still hadn't done anything. we'll see what finally happens with robert iger. i wouldn't know how to fix disney. no idea. >> tough business. coming up, the largest group of real estate agents is agreeing to lower commissions as part of a wave of class action lawsuits. this could lead to lower home prices. that's next. futures right now solid on rn pnasdaq, the dow has now tuedositive. we'll be right back.

the national association of realtors agreed to pay $418 million to settle lawsuits over how the industry sets commissions. the agreement could lead to rule changes that could drive down the costs of home buying transactions. let's talk more about this settlement and what it means for the real estate industry with our senior real estate correspondent diana olick.

and diana, i need your help this morning. the more i read about this over the weekend, the less i understood it. what really happened here? >> yeah, and it's wildly confusing. look, this was 108-page settlement, so it took a lot to read through, and trust me, i didn't read all 108 pages. the first thing to make clear is the nar didn't agree to lower commissions. what they did do is they're changing the way those commissions are negotiated between the seller's agent and the buyer's agents and they're taking the entire thing off the mls, which is the multiple listing service, which is where you see most listings. what the charge had been is that sellers were kind of setting that buyers agent commission and that in turn would cost consumers more. so the result of this could cost, you know, consumers less because the question then becomes does a consumer even want to use a buyer's agent. now it has to do with that home sho shopper. do i want to use an agent if i'm buying. when you're selling, most people want to tend to want to use the

an agent, it helps them to stage the home and market the home and stand there during the open house. can you sell a home by yourself, for sale by owner? yes, you can, but it really had to do with the buyer's agent and how that commission was set between the seller's agent and the buyer's agent, and that was what they saw as the problem and that's what the case was really about. >> meaning what? as a buyer, i'm still not going to be involved with any of the commission setting or -- >> no, you are if you use an agent you are. so -- >> signing anything or agreeing to any details ever in the past. >> that's the whole point. >> that's the point is -- >> talk to me and negotiate it first? >> exactly. so the last time i bought a home, which was a very, very long time ago, and i didn't really know how this was before i was a real estate reporter, i had an agent who was helping me look around for houses. i didn't actually know that i didn't need an agent, and i also

didn't know how the fee structure for that agent was set. when i said to the agent, who's going to pay you for taking me around and schlepping me to look at these homes, they said, oh, we split the commission. that may not have been the case or maybe it was the case in that situation, but it didn't have to be. you see what i'm saying? so i didn't necessarily need an agent, and a lot of people don't now. you can go online. as i recall, the house i'm sitting in right now i found it online myself. can i need a buyer's agent. >> maybe you paid the buyer's agent. >> exactly. >> in a tight market, it's really tough, though, in a tight market -- >> exactly. you do need -- >> right. and i've had experiences where a buyer's agent was very message. i've had experiences where i found the place myself. i'm not really sure why i paid them. >> exactly. >> but the question is did you pay them? >> most people cadon't buy a lo

of houses. you do it once. maybe you do it twice in your life, but it's not a common thing, and you don't learn how any of this stuff works until afterwards. is this really going to change anything? >> well, and exactly, that was what one of the agents i talked to on friday was that her concern was less about commissions coming down. she was going to get commissions for listing homes, it was less about that. it was more about first time home buyers. people who had never done this before who didn't understand the process, who really needed a buyer's agent to walk them through it, to understand how to negotiate, to understand the contract. there are all kinds of things in a housing contract when you sign. am i doing an escalation clause. am i taking the house as is? am i going to get the inspection? there are all kinds of things that first time buyers and even second time buyers may not know about that a buyer's agent can be extremely helpful and protected for, and her concern was that if buyers choose not to use a buyer's agent because now the negotiation for that agent is on the consumer, it doesn't

come necessarily from the seller's agent, which it had before, then is that requgoing hurt the consumer? >> that's a fair and valid question because having gone through the process if nobody's pointing this stuff out to you, you could lose your shirt on what's going to be the biggest investment you've ever had. it's a complicated process going through it. >> exactly. >> okay. still not sure i understand, may need you to come back. diana, would you tell people to -- what would be your one piece of advice going through all of this? would you say, yeah, talk to a buyer's agent is and negotiate the price or go it alone? >> i think it depends on how savvy you are in the real estate market. for a first time buyer, a buyer's agent can be very helpful. in a very complicated competitive market, a buyer's agent can be very helpful. but just know what you're paying for. know what you're doing, do the research, look online. if you found that perfect house online and nobody else is making an offer for it, and you want

it, do you need a buyer's agent probably not if the you know how the market works. as i always say, research, research, research, and ask a lot of questions, and always make sure you're in the driver's seat when you're in this type of negotiation. >> thanks, diana. >> you need a person to put the little yellow things where you need to sign? >> i don't know if it's worth 20 grand. but there are things that are really complicated about when it's okay to do this and when it's not. >> couldn't possibly. investor and palantir cofounder joe lonsdale on the latest moves in the ai revolution. later, from the tiktok bill to the 2024 campaign trail, we'll get into those topics and more when former house speaker kevin 00.mrthy joins us in the 8: a. hour, i think he's on set with us. "squawk box" coming right back. ) i have inherited the best traditions. (woman 2 vo) i have a great boss...

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apple reportedly in talks with google to license and build its gemini ai engine into the iphone. that's according to bloomberg report. it says the tech giants are in active negotiations that could result in gemini, powering new features that could be released

for the iphone later this year. joining us to talk ai, reddit, and much more, joe lonsdale, vc founding partner and palantir cofounder. you want to start tiktok? you want to start -- i mean, the whole situation we saw with ai, i worry about ai for a lot of reasons, but a woke ai that's infected with the woke mind virus, how can we -- isn't it inevitable that one of the ai site s is going to be that way just from who's putting in garbage in, garbage out? >> a lot of us looked at gemini and said what in tar natnation. >> they also said they were in negotiations with open ai. they could be negotiating with everybody right now. >> they probably are. google does have a strong ai team. reddit is very similar to these other companies. reddit has some really helpful

parts if you're a nerd trying to learn physics. if you're doing hard technical things there's really good things on reddit. the big risk in their ipo is they have people moderating everything by hand and these people part of their conversation because they're not paid so their compensationideol. it's going to teach the ai to be woke as well. work force, working volunteers, working for free. part of the reason they work for free is they get to impose their ideology. it's a very funny culture you've got in all these tech companies. >> we have that ideology, which i want no part of, and then we've got the ccp ideology, which do you think is a real threat? >> i think it's frankly a bigger threat. obviously the confidence in the u.s. is a big deal and we have to make u.s. competent and overcome that. i think china is very scary. giving them access to 100 million of our people over tiktok is insane. this is not a ban we're talking about. this is talking about not letting ccp own this. it's not allowed to own "the new

york times" it's not allowed to own rupert murdoch -- >> ccp doesn't own "the new york times" now? they come up with all that stuff on their own? >> i'm not a huge fan there. i think this is how the world works. you can't give your adversary, you have a crazy dictator in charge. >> we get wrapped up in the stuff where we're shooting at ourselves. it's very different whether you're talking about the ccp or putin. those are actual threats to our democracy. but when you have 100 million americans or 170 million americans saying i want my mtv. i want my tiktok, what happens? because i see this slowing down in the senate already, and senators saying we're glad that the house voted for it, but we're not going to do that. what happens? how does this play out? >> i think there are some concerns by putting out like david said, elon musk, others on the right we want to make sure it's not giving the president the power to go after any platform they want. my reading of the bill is that cfius powers area super set.

i don't think this bill creates that. i think it should be clear the bill does not create extra power for someone to go after elon musk or meta, but they need to go after ccp and tiktok. it's really important they do this. >> you think the senator wills withstand that? we talked about some house members were getting 20 calls a m minute when. >> they responded 50-0 against tiktok. i think any senator that's pro-america and is doing their duty is going to fix this and take tiktok away from the ccp. >> think x is more essential than ever at this point? i've been starting to come around to that conclusion. >> you need one place that's not ideologically sensor that had way. listen, all the sites are important. >> are you shocked at some of the stuff you see on mainstream media. they have definitely abdicated their responsibility for trying to represent both sides because

they think they have a role to play as far as activism because they think it's that important, and i think if they think -- for example, if they think biden versus trump, there are people in mainstream media that are definitely part of the biden team, they're going to do anything they can possibly do at this point to make sure trump is not reelected. >> i think the level of faction in this country is very unhealthy. you go back similarly to times and empires not doing well like rome and others and the internal faction, they hate each other more than the barbarians that are going to conquer them and take them down. >> they don't deny it. a couple of years ago said it's no longer part of the journalistic sort of mantra that i need to be -- this guy is so bad that all bets are off and we need to do what we can. >> i was really disappointed to see people like nancy pelosi going along with the fake blood bath. >> that's unbelievable. >> it was ridiculous, yeah. >> with ai, which one of these are the right ones?

how do you -- give us like a user's guide or investors' guide to which is any good or do we not know yet. >> the way i would play ai, the real question how do you apply ai to increase productivity in the economy. there's lots of areas, you see ramp here in new york city, you see all sorts of other companies applying it. obviously palantir to basically raise productivity of services. the question is not so much which part of the infrastructure matters. to me the question we actually bet on today is how do you make this billing process we're spending $200 billion four times as official. there's all these parts of the economy you can pull out hundreds of billions of dollars of waste thanks to ai, that's the way you want to play it right now. >> can we talk quickly about the woke mind virus as they -- did you want to do that? i saw it in the notes. do you mind? >> sure. >> i mean, is it a -- i've seen it called almost a secular religion at this point. >> you know, there's a challenge

in america right now where are things going to be based on confidence and merit, are they going to be based on something else. i think when you don't have accountability, this is one of the ways in which you can get around merit and which you can break things. i think people are speaking against it. there's a long hard battle to push back against merit. >> don't you think after october 7th and what we saw, houston, we have a problem in our higher institutions. >> yeah. >> do we not? major problem. >> a lot of people are aware of this problem in a way they weren't before. it's going to take courage and bold cness to go in and elimina it. ben sasse in florida. >> if you lose ben sasse, i mean, if that's the guy that's going to come in -- i just. i don't know. >> i think rational moderate people are realizing we have to go in and eliminate a lot of these positions. they're not adding any value at

all. you're going to see a lot of merit coming back. that's going to be a fight we're going to have to stand up and fight. >> it's difficult you can be on the side as that, then you have as your flag bearer donald trump, it's all so crazy, isn't it? >> i think he's an unfortunate flag bearer for the moderates who are trying to win over. >> who else you got? otherwise you got biden with kamala waiting in the wings. >> we need more of my generation to step up and get involved in leadership. it's always important. >> all right. as far as ai goes, the biggest threat is what, joe? ten years from now. >> the biggest threat if you ask obviously the leaders in the tech world right now is how quickly does agi get to be much, much smarter than people. are you creating something that's going to change the nature of the world? that's the biggest question. it's a tool that's going to massively increase productivpro.

there's always positives. if it gets too smart and someone uses it for something we don't even understand. >> it uses itself for something we don't -- isn't that possible? if it's sentient eventually? could it ever be sentient? >> yes. >> we're learning very much how the human brain works and we're learning ways this thing could be way more advanced than the human brain. that's the big question that's very scary. i t very smart friends of mine think we'll be there in five or ten years. that is the existential question. >> if five to ten years is the low end, what are you thinking is more like ri? >> i think it takes a very long time. i think the universe has more steps to the game than other people think. and i think our brains and minds are more complicated than people realize. maybe it's naive of me, i think it could take a couple of generations. >> i hope you're right. >> if we went out to a bar and had a couple of cocktails, could i really get you to go off like you didn't really just now? >> i tend to agree with people

like mark an degreesonwho have all these positive views of how this could be used in the world. poor people, people who are not doing well economically could get lots of things very cheap. i think it's really positive, so i am more exfocussed on that, a i don't think we should stop it. i think there's this threat which is something we have to threat. >> elon can survive, people are out to get him as you can tell. >> i think it's something he worries about. >> okay, joe, thanks. >> when we come become, crude prices ticking higher as interest rates and geopolitical concerns take center stage for commodities. we're going to get an outlook in just a couple of minutes. "squawk box" will be right back. i was always very curious so i say curiosity drove me, but confidence built me. i tell a lot of young women today raise your hand, build your capability, good things

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a couple of stocks to watch this morning, hsbc raising its price target on nvidia from $880 to 1,050. it says nvidia is not just defending its position in the ai space, but is on the attack with its 2025 road map. you can see that stock this morning up another 2.8% just above $903. cnbc's jim cramer is going to be speaking with nvidia founder and ceo genjensen huang tomorrow on "squawk on the street.." in the next hour, former house speaker kevin mccarthy is going to join us. "squawk box" will be right back.

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reaching their highest levels in months. joining us right now, francisco blanc. bofa head of derivatives research. francisco, why don't we start with oil prices. they're at four and a half months high a lot because of a tax in russia. can you explain where things stand and where you think they're headed? >> hey, great to see you. look, i think there is, you pointed out, a tax on russian refinery infrastructure in particular. going into the driving season. buildupdiesel. getting ready for the season. if the refineries are damaged that pressures the entire complex up. exactly what we're seeing today. >> you think prices will continue to climb from here? >> i think there's a risk certainly both gasoline and diesel prices chase each other up into the summer, because we

start to run pipe on refining capacity. we've is, since came out of covid, we've had three bumper travel seasons. '21 milder but then '22 great, '23 phenomenal and i think 2024 very, very strong for tourism, growth, transportation, jets, or jet fuel demand. so air transportation. still seeing a strong summer season ahead. >> copper prices have been climbing. a lot of people say that's because expectations that global manufacturing is going to continue to do well and improve from here. what do you read into it? >> we agree. a restocking cycle. one thing we need to get copper into a much firmer footing from here is interest rates to go down. now, the market's expecting three cuts. we are, bank of america expecting lee interest rate cuts

starting in june. if that playing out copper will have a lot of upside pressure, because inventories of both finished goods, but also raw materials, are actually quite low. remember normally going into end of a business cycle, companies grow inventories on high interest rates only to see sales crush. we don't expect that. we expect sales to firm up as rates go down. we think copper will do well and green energy, transition, very strong going forward. >> what if that's not the scenario that plays out? roger ferguson on earlier this morning. he's the former vice chair of the federal reserve, and he says just based on what he's seeing with the cpi and ppi numbers recently, that he is now only expecting two rate cuts. he wouldn't even say that he thinks they'll happen starting in july. he thinks second half of the year is a better bet for that. if that's the case, do you think copper prices come down? >> i think copper can come down a little here.

if rates start to come off in earnest. of course, copper suffering the most if we had recession. i think there's a fine balance here. look at pmis globally, industrial activity and metrics all bottoming out and expectation interest rates come down and continued demand for all the goods house tempered through the last couple years, where we had rates going from 0 to 5.5%. yes, rate-cutting cycle doesn't start i think copper will take a little hit here. again, inventories are low and down side small. we're seeing very strong bid on copper concentrates actually now. raw materials makes irrefined copper. >> gold prices at all-time highs. that's happening with that same backdrop. concerns, i guess, about inflation? >> there is some of that for sure, but i think one bing thing

describes gold prices is geopolitical risk. we've seen -- the financial system effectively coming ing u lower presh. central banks don't trust central banks since europeans and americans decided to freeze central bank's assets from russia and see huge central banks buying last couple years across the board. even trishg european highlights buying gold because worried about china in years ahead or from russia. we're seeing widespread buying across the community and people are worry ied about geopolitica risk. a hot war in ukraine, remember, and results of a russian election could still go on for a while. and then, of course, there's the u.s. election in november. i think that political risk is -- >> got to run. late for a commercial break. thank you very much. >> thank you. comingup, we're on

washington watch with former house speaker kevin mccarthy who joins us for a wide-ranging interview. later, president of the united steel workers union on the takeover of u.s. steel by nippon duryl and what it could mean for inst workers. "squawk box" is coming right back.

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good morning. futures are green now across the board. nasdaq seeing biggest pre-market days. shares of you if a bette jumping that apple may integrate tools into future iphones. we'll get into the that a little later and talk about the late out of washington with former house. seer kevin mccarthy, and including shut down of the border and campaign 2024. final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. we're live from the nasdaq

market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen. andrew is off today. on this monday morning, you're going to see that right now at least things are looking pretty good for the equity futures. dow futures down by about 65 points. s&p up by close to 40 points and nasdaq up over 200 points right now. watching treasury yields. not because yields are getting lower you're watching a run on equities. ten year yielding 4.3%. two year add 4.71 call this, bud a little different than we saw last week. >> i was going to start with mike santoli. over to our senior markets correspondent mike santoli. mike, the path of least resistance still seems to be up for equities were in spite of, i don't know, keep paring back on rate cuts. still the glow in a.i. has us movie higher? >> a lot of that, not all of it.

you've had a slowing down of the rally in the face of the higher bond yields. in the rethink on the fed path. you've seen seven of the last ten trading days s&p down. except open today at these, if futch efs hold above than beginning of that period. very, very small decline. tech consolidating. microsoft done nothing for, like a month. nvidia even hasn't made a new closing high in a whole tell days net the market so far is holding a high upturn from the october lows. that's key. bounced off at this level a handful of times. there's been rotation, of course, today, if you see another jolt of ximts ahead of that nvidia event and alphabet and apple also. so far hanging together at this point. even though seems as if sentiment's getting a little overexcited arguably on some measures. there has been rotation. look on year-to-date basis. energy and materials relative to the nasdaq 100. actually ndx at least as of

friday's close underperforming on a year-to-date basis. the energy and material. seen it come back in commodities. you guys just talking about it. of course, on a one-year basis, nasdaq is up more than twice as much as these areas. kind of the rest of the market doing just enough to hold together. talk about a.i. excitement and the general let's buy a piece of the magical future trade. here's nvidia relative to bitcoin since june 30th of last year. yep. sort of feeding off some of the same energy, even though there's not necessarily as much of a direct link. go back farther obviously. doesn't link you quite so well. nvidia up over two years four times as much as bitcoin. were i don't know. interesting, trajectory. since this moment june 30th last year s&p up only 15%. >> okay. all right, mike. santoli. not irish, really. any irish?

>> no. >> nowhere? >> nowhere. >> not going back. celebrate at all? did you drink? have corned beef? >> no. i observed a lot of green in the neighborhood an happy to -- honestly no. >> a lot of -- >> no. not in the that direction. >> an underrated holiday, for whatever it is. we look forward to it when it happens. like all of them, goes too fast, mike, but we'll see. thank you. i knew he wasn't. >> santoli. yeah. >> i thought maybe -- on his mother's side? >> maybe. our next guest says the current market harally is one don't like much. nonetheless, bullish on bristol-myerssquibb and palo alto networks and chevron and bearish on silver trust. ceo of ig north america. first of all, explain -- jj, got

to have an answer? >> parents and three older sisters and five youngest born in chicago. >> okay. come by a very directly and honestly there. jj, why do people need this rally so much? >> i guess it's the rally that the path of leastresistance almost is up. it's really interesting to me, becky, as we hit all-time highs think about in the past when we've done it so much. you've heard people talking about it everywhere you went. not getting that sense at all. that everyone is, oh, okay. i'm missing out. not a sense of fomo, if you will, that we've seen in the past. so with that, everyone continues to be really nervous around this rally, because the inflation numbers aren't backing off. employment has been good, but, you know, the numbers themselves good but keep seeing revisions down and jobbed created aren't

necessarily careers in many cases truly jobs. not that you can't make careers working in restaurants and things like that, but at some point in our lives most have probably done that and tried to move on to something else. i think because of those two things it continues to make in investers nervous what the next step is. talking about stocks, nvidia, of course, continuing to outperform in amazing ways. >> i guess this may be different, that so many people still hate it on the way up. or is this just early? i'm trying to figure out if this plays out like a normal sort of rally and chase the rally? first you hate it. then figure, oh, my gosh, the fear of missing out kicks in at some point and you chase it and go along with it. a lot of money on the sidelines. do you think we're smarter this time around? >> i don't know that people are necessarily, if it's smarter, or just, you know, they're seeing the market do incredible and not

necessarily seeing the results of that in their day-to-day lives. so i think more to it, becky, they're seeing a disconnect between the reality of what's happening to them and what's actually going on in the markets opinion you know, especially i think where we tend to often get this fear of missing out is in some younger investors. younger investors right now are concerned maybe they can't afford to buy a house or their rent has gone up significantly. like, i'm not seeing this, how these two things aren't connecting overall. >> if the run continues and if it keeps going it will win more and more converts? i wonder how does this end? >> you know, obviously, if you continue to run you always see people eventually convert. i will say the one thing for those who are in right now, becky, most interesting to me, this is the sign to me this is going to continue for a little while woo, it's that our percentage of clients who trade index is and index-based etfs

versus individual names is at what i would call the baseline. never see it go below 30%. that's kind of where we're at right now. 70% of traders are, you know, involved with names that are not index spaced, and that's what tends to keep this going, because people are willing to -- you know, i had stocks up there that people, bristol-myers is not a name. we've seen incredible bullishness in there. they're not names you normally see here. always nvidias, teslas, et cetera. we're seeing a lot more names. not that people aren't, of course, still trading in nvidias and teslas but not above average. above average the names out of the top 20 or so we normally see. >> you listed chevron one of the ones that clients are very bullish on, too. why do you think that is? just higher crude oil prices? >> a lot of it, a way to synthetically play crude oil they did not want to necessarily

buy the future or the u.s., one of the etfs, whatever it may be. with that went out and bought chevron as a stock that -- affordable. >> you don't see the same in exxon, unique to chevron? >> the interesting part about it. seeing a lot more in chevron than exxon, which is a little abnormal. i must say. usually see it in exxon first before you see it in chevron. then you talked a lot about nvidia today. interesting, first of all i would say to people look the option market's telling us between now and friday you should see nvidia with about a 9% lose. people have to take that into account in terms of what are they willing to stomach risk-wise, and the other thing is those 900 calls trading, you know, pre-market now just above 900. something we saw many speculating on last week buying those calls. now, end of the week e, 31 dollars, so, i guess break even low, sell it sooner obviously or

continue higher. interesting how the stock's going right above that mark. >> okay. jj out of time, but, thank you. >> all right. have a great week. >> talk to you again soon. happy belated st. patrick's day. >> same to you. hope you had a great day. >> thank you. and now got a guy named mccarthy! he's going to join us. kevin mccarthy. he may have pondered or -- that -- holiday yesterday. probably hit home a little bit with kevin mccarthy. talk spending, the balance of power in washington and the campaign in 2024. stay tedun. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. nship! nice shot, marcus! sweet, turn simulation off. tssk, tssk, not so fast. what, why? did you forget marcus? forget what? your chem exam? uggh? flashcard time! the atomic weight of boron. the future isn't scary, not investing in it is. 100 innovative companies, one etf. before investing, carefully read and consider fund

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welcome back to "squawk box." it's monday morning and things are picking um steam when you look at the stock market this morning. dow futures up triple digits. gain of about 100 points. nasdaq indicated up 225. s&p indicated up by about 45. check out shares of boeing this morning. that company on watch again today after an older united airlines 737800 landed at its destination in oregon friday missing an external panel. though the boeing door plug panel that blew out of the plane

in january came during an alaska airlines flight it's been united that has seen a number of safety incidents over the last few weeks. just moments ago united ceo scott kirby sent a message to customers referring to those incidents. the note reads in part -- while they are all unrelated i want you to know that these incidents have our attention and have sharpened our focus. that note goes on to say -- you can be confident that every time a united plane pulls ewa from the gate everyone on our team is working to egg to keep you safe on your trip. >> ahead, another big week for washington. bring in form 0er speaker of the house kevin mccarthy. kevin, mr. speaker, thank you for joining us. some reason thought you were onset today. sometimes you make it here, but i guess today we'll have to do it this way. it's good to have you on. let's start with tiktok, i guess. i'm seeing a lot of people say that was your china select committee and it was a remnant,

least, in some part, this bill from something that you wanted to legislate? >> well, it came of you 0 the select committee on china which i created when i became speaker. really, the whole idea of that committee is areas that were dependent upon china. right? also looking at critical minerals, processing, medical supply and the whole concept creating that committee and uniqueness why it's praise now how it worked together. you watched a bill come out 50-0, tdemocrats and republican all of this chaos how can they focus? it came in normandty talking the grave sites with speaker pelosiwhat could they have done prior to d-day that day never would have happened? it's a decade. read graham ellis' books 16

times number two always challenging number one only four times not going to war. what we really need to do especially looking at covid. we became too dependent pop china for medical supplies for critical minerals and others and attuned co d congress to look further. a success of republicans and i give gallagher and democratic colleague working together not just this issue, chinese looking at labs taking oevg e research shouldn't have. did the research government agencies did not. hats off to them. >> can you explain former president trump's flip-flop on tiktok? >> well, i think what president trump is actually looking at, it's a broader question. a legitimate question. it is the protection of the data itself. because we're watching data get used whether you have chinese

affiliation or not. so i think his question is, overall. i think this is a bigger question that congress needs to tackle. you know, if there is a, on the internet, if a site is free you are the product. and so just like private property, do you, you have a trite your data. can you remove it? they're monetizing your data. can you transfer it some else? that's a much bigger question and where i think president trump is actually looking at. not just one social media entity but others as well who they use their data to manipulate and get you to move in other directions. >> mr. speaker, much more nuanced view than the president, the former president articulated. when president trump was speaking about it he basically just said, hey, don't worry about them, because the badder, bigger badder guys are facebook. i think that's a real question. somebody who has had access to

all kinds of classified documents to all kinds of classified information, how seriously should we take this china risk versus the risk of -- of monopoly or duopoly situations in the united states? it's a constant theme coming up again and again. are putin, are the cc. t ccp bigger enemies or here at the homefront? >> look all around. having been on the gang of eight and as the world sits today i'm really concerned what's happening in congress or lack of action. lack of ability to fund israel. what will they do on ukraine? sending messages around the world contradicting really where america should be standing. looks a little more like the 1930s. thing that keeps me up at nice axis of evil, russia, china, iran movement together. should be concerning to america,

to europe, anybody who loves democracy itself. anytime congress is bogged down like now they will take advantage. an election happening in russia putin wins by more than 85% of the vote. you know that's not a legitimate election from the standpoint that number's coming back at. a real concern to me on actions he's take aing. similar to what hitler took in the '30s. we need to stand much better together and stronger as we move forward, but there are still concerns that the power that some of easy that companies have and used the way they use it individually concerns me. when i look to long term it is the axis of evil of these north korea, iran, russia and china together that concerns me the greatest of what i'm looking at. >> since we talked to you we had a -- we had a state of the union and we had a, a budget, which is kind of, you know how that works. you've seen many budgets in the past.

not anything that's going to happen, but very different priorities and policies than republicans i think would put forward. >> you have a great deal of contrast. the president's budgets nowadays don't mean anything because they don't go anywhere. even their own parties do not vote for them. watched a state of the union much different and i always reverse engineering what are you trying to achieve, because at that moment the bully pulpit, whoever is president has a lot of power everybody's looking to. reverse engineering that seemed as though president biden was trying to shore up his own support within the democratic party. he used it really for political basis not to get a bump, or talk to the independents or talk to the nikki haley voters but a little more concerned to shore up his vote going into his convention coming forward. that was interesting to me. if you look at his numbers

sitting about 37%. that's a very difficult number for an incumbent. running a different type of campaign. this is the contrast. i would think president trump is going to run a campaign mostly on policy. do that contrast. because those issues at the border and economy, president trump will win that election. look at president biden. he's trying to run a campaign on personalities. saying don't look at my policies. you just don't want to have president trump back in office. now, who's going to drive the most voters to that? interesting to me that when you're returning a, as an incumbent that type of campaign doesn't work. president biden got no bump out of the state of the union, which are unusual for any president. so he had a waste of opportunity. he's sitting coming into this friday, could be a government shutdown, a lot of problems on homeland security appropriation. i think both sides will get in trouble for that, in the polls. it doesn't look like president biden has the energy to turn these ub ins around.

so it's real concerning if i was sitting in the white house today. >> i was going to ask you about tiktok. you think it gets to the senate? you think they, and is it a worry about young voters that, that it has this sort of, slow opt? >> interesting, president biden, took a poll politically in trouble signing that bill between now and the election to the young voters and what they're going about saying. he's already said he's sign it. doesn't seem any bill moves fast in the senate. warner and rubio on intel committee, supporting even though had a different bill. schumer seems he wants to slow it down. it moved rapid loy out of the house people didn't get to view it as much. this is a big company. how do you turn something like that in a sort amount of days? interesting how schumer approaches this bill. border's the number one bill. we moved on border security bill when i was speaker. had a parents bill of rights but

an energy bill. top issue as gone nowhere in the senate. there's no guarantee that this bill comes out of the senate, or that anything starts moving, because the senate has much different rules and don't seem as though to get along that well with the house right now. >> former speaker, kevin mccarthy, happy belated st. patrick's day. anybody who's irish, we're bringing it up as, you know -- >> aaron -- >> a holiday. didn't get to do it live, but thank you. >> thank you. >> still look good next to that dome. still look good there. pull you back in some day. never know. see ya later. thanks. all right. coming up, the latest developments in the battle over the future of u.s. steel. don't miss our special interview with the president of the united steel workers union. u'> stay tuned. yore watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc. as a fiduciary, i promise to be the financial steward that you and your family need.

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breaking news on ev start-ups. fisker, struggling automaker warned earlier this month about its ability to stay in business. phil lebeau joins us with more. what happened? >> joe, raised the potentially up to 150 dollars. 35 million immediately. done through inverticcal notes with an unnamed investor. this giving them a little liquidity, cash infusion at a time they desperately need it. there's nothing good in this 10k dropped by the company this morning. essentially saying that they are still serious doubt about whether or not the company will be able to stay in business. they are pausing production for six weeks starting this week. how many vehicle doss they have in inventory? roughly 1,300. majority in north america. they do have about 120 million dollars of liquidity between

unrestricted and restricted cash. and the company also says in its latest release that they are still in negotiations with a large automaker to potentially take a stake in fisker or assist in manufacturing of an electric vehicle. again, the news is that they get a little cash infusion. s $35 million eventually. potentially up to $150 million. not seeing much reaction in fisker shares. back to you. >> are we -- on a different matter, the panel on the boeing/united jet. >> yep. >> was this happening all the time and we just didn't hear about it? or is it just -- >> oh, yeah. that's the chicken and egg question, joe. look, i think we know when things happen pretty easily nowadays because of social media. it's rare that you see something happen, any part of the world, with any airplane and it's not reported in some fashion. it does seem like we have seen a string of these incidents. not just with united but a

number of airlines around the world. they're amplified now because of the struggles at boeing. and that has a lot of people saying, well, is this a boeing issue or maintenance issue? with a particular airplane or airline? or is this a situation which is the early indication with the 787, down in new zealand where it appears that that was a case where it was a flight attendant ho who leaned on a button, forced the pilot to lean and the plane a severe drop. not feeling great about everything seeing with airplanes and the pilots. that would be my toons your question. >> what's this button do? that's crazy has -- that that could -- >> the final conclusion, if it is, that's crazy. >> it is crazy. i wonder if, not the social media aspect, whether we're looking for the slightest thing

on every boeing plane that, you know -- >> it's not just boeing, joe. not just boeing. occasionally you see it with other aircraft as well. whether airbus or another -- >> only one other. it's either boeing or airbus. >> i understand what you're saying. appears to be boeing, but keep in mind. like the tire that fell off of the united flight. come on. a 20-year-old plane. not a boeing issue. that's a maintenance issue. >> and fell off this weekend. hard toblame boeing when it's an older plane. >> it's a maintenance thing. >> not like the door plug, a 2-month-old plane. >> and a major thing. who? okay, phil. thank you. you know it's phil, cars, planes, trains and automobiles. >> shares of google parent alphabet moving jumping on a bloomberg report apple is in talks to licence alphabet's

gemini a.i. technology for future iphones. joining now to talk about what a deal could mean for both companies cnbc technology correspondent steve kovac and, steve, pretty interesting. i was looking through the reporting on this trying to get a sense of whether this is imminent, whether there's -- apparently also in talks with open source a.i. >> sounds imminent in the sense likely it will be stuff we see in the iphones that come out this fall and likely going to be announced in june during apple's annual developer's conference. it's huge. assumption up to early, wee hours this morning when the report came out was am's going to build its own model, do everything in-house as it's done many times. does everything it can in-house. this is a testament of they don't have the goods yet and they -- >> because they can't, because they're not doing it in-house because they can't? >> exactly. this is super interesting, because five or six years ago apple hire add google em mother

to report to tim cook, ceo, to run all a.i. stuff. cusp's announcement will break new ground in a.i. interesting they have to go to google at least to help, in part, for them to do whatever it is they think they're going to do. also i note this gemini stuff is running on google and android phones already. samsung earlier this year has some. look at it, what can it do? erase some photos do some live transition in different languages. the whiz-bone features i have a year old iphone but one the new one? maybe. >> further behind is the issue with it. questions raised already, though, because of antitrust rec l regulators looking at the relationship off the exists between google and apple. $20 billion a year? >> $19. >> $19 billion a year google is paying apple to be the source of

searches. >> right. on top of that you have, two platforms. apple and google, on mobile. that's it. you have the two platforms tied up even closer together. expecting department of justice to sue apple for antitrust any die. perhaps this week, tomorrow the next day. you can hear them over at the doj, typing now rye to get this in there. this is is putting these two together on a fundamental new kind of technology. just just about app stories anymore. it's about the a.i. tie-up as well. i totally see them looking into that as well just strengthening the duopoly they already have. >> shares up this morning. interesting. >> see which way you think the money's going, too. >> steve, thank you. coming up, what's at stake for nvidia as the company's a.i. developers' conference kicks off. speaking with an analyst. stay tedun. "squawk box" will be right back.

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the fed delivers its next interest rate decision wednesday. our next guest says focus for investors should be on the central bank's dot plot. balance sheet and rhetoric.

joining us, head of multisector fixed income investing at goldmans sachs asset management. if you're reading any of the fine print if you're watching what's happened the last couple data points on inflation it does feel like rate cuts have gotten pushed back a little. maybe won't see as many this year. certainly seems to be what the treasury market is telling us with higher yields? >> absolutely true. treasury market has completely repriced what the fed, they think the fed is going to do. started off just two months ago say 150 basis points in cuts. now 75. that is in line with the dot plot last received. getting a new one wednesday. that's true. likelihood, all math, right? arithmetically possible to go from three dots to two dots. the big picture for us is the fed actually puts those dots out there for information and forward guidance. let's be clear. they haven't followed those dots, right? the cuts we had were emergency

cuts. no dot plot saying post-covid they would do emergency cuts. on the way back up as well more aggressive than the dot plot suggested doing. 50, 75s to catch inflation. so the dot plot's helpful, but we don't think it's something to be super concerned about, if you see three dots go to two. >> it does suggest that inflation is a bigger problem. we've seen higher numbers with the pce and, or with the ppi and cpi numbers recently. if the dots change, that's going to suggest to people that the fed is more worried that inflation has not been cured yet? >> yeah. so it is absolutely in a correct downward trend. right? it is working. i think if you look outside the window we are in a soft landing. this is actually happening and seeing the numbers come down. january, definitely hot inflation prints. february, not as hot, but still maybe not exactly where the market wanted it. the trend is in the right place

and why on wednesday it's really important to look at estimates that will also we'll get from the faend listen to the rhetoric. what powell said will be important. we think he'll continue with the message that inflation is trending in the right direction, but this isn't a straight, easy path. right? it's going to be a little bumpy. >> odds are you will get a little more hawkish, commentary, than you did when he spoke before it was not the house but the senate. speaking for the senate. feels like it's coming sooner rather than later essentially? if i were trying to measure with some very specific seismic reading i might turn it up a little more hawk tosh say i spect he's not going to say quite as much? >> i think he gave himself really good space there. why i say that is because the fed introduced a new metric which is confidence. right? and that to precision, confidence isn't something you can have with precision or knowing how somebody else feels

in terms of their confidence. powell gave himself the space to be really open in this meeting and in the messages. that's good. they're data-dependent and data isn't real moving. >> fixed income, an open market. liquidity whether you are investment grade even junk bond status at this point now. market's pretty open. right? >> wide open. yeah. actually a lot of self-side firms bringing up estimates what they think will happen in terms of issuance. meaning so wide open and levels are more attractive or companies can wrap their heads around cost of capital probably more company, going to come to market rather than less. yes. markets really open. they're liquid. for us the real opportunity here is not buying the market writ large. it's an finding the different pockets of value in the market and we're active managers. that's what we do. >> where are they? >> some interesting areas are structured product. we really like structured product. that's an area that people were

nervous about last year. specifically, commercial real estate. i think as there is more clarity around the cost of capital going forward, we do think that the fed is going to start cutting in june. that gives some foresight or insight into where your cost of capital is in the future. i think we're seeing all of these markets normalize. the labor market's normalizing. inflation downward trending. the biggest thing, that is like the pot of gold right now in the economy, is that the economy is super strong. it's more robust and more resilient at high interest costs than one anticipated. >> really strong economy, fixed income markets wide open for just about anybody who wants money, not an argument for cutting rates? >> well, it's not an argument for cutting a lot. i think that's the big shift that we need to wrap our heads around which is, this could be a more shallow cycle. doesn't mean that the fed doesn't cut. they just don't have to cut as much. i think that's the important thing to figure out.

so if you're -- >> projecting at all, if things look pretty good? >> looking good but softness. right? looked at the labor market six months sts stronger than now. look at retail sales. softer. it's not just gung-buster's growth no problem whatsoever in the economy. we do have a soft landing but things can change. so it is important, i think, for them to begin the process of getting to the rate they tell us is the neutral rate. which they are not at right now. >> no. i think still deciding what the neutral rate is, though. >> yes. and we'll hear formally about has wednesday as well. not a meeting certainly not a hike. definitely not a cut. we are going to get a lot of information about how they're thinking and to your point. i think that long-term rate, neutral rate, is probablialities higher as going forward inflation is going to be at a higher level than we probably experienced the past 15 years on

average. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, united steel worker's president dan mccall joins us, sharing with us the attitudes of his workers towards potential deal for u.s. steel by n nippon and cisco closing its acquisition of splunk. appearing on xwt xwt 9:15 a.m. eastern time. rytee d ucga selanchk robbins. >> misses that as a name? >> no. >> coming right back. what straps bold to a rocket and hurtles it into space? boring does. great job astro-persons. over. boring is the jumping off point for all the un-boring things we do. boring makes vacations happen, early retirements possible, and startups start up. because it's smart, dependable, and steady. all words you want from your bank. taking chances is for skateboarding... and gas station sushi. not banking.

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talk about the bid for u.s. steel by japan's neep pon steel. president biden called it vital in his words for u.s. steel to remain domestically own and operated. last week head of the united steel workers union welcomed that message. meanwhile, in a statement to cnbc u.s. steel said it also has the backs of american steel workers and that, in their words hashes been made clear there

will be no job losses, no plant closures and no transfer of production resulting from this transaction. joining us now, david mccall united steel workers union international president. good to see you. thanks for joining us. >> good morning. >> it's hard to separate all the different concerns here. i wonder if, is it, should we be worried with all the onshoring and all the concern about keeping things in the united states strategic industries, using, you know, usually worried about china. is it important that u.s. steel remains independent or is it important that nippon were to honor all of the existing labor contracts? what are we really talking about here? >> it's really a combination of both. i mean, first of ll, you know, we recognize as everybody does, japan's and ally. that doesn't necessarily make them an economic ally. for years we've had issues over trade cases where they've dumped

product into the u.s., either selling it below market prices. or it being subsidized. japan has an overcapacity of steelmaking in their country, and along with their jvs in china, an issue, are we going to continue to melt steel in the united states? that's a national defensive u. critical infrastructure and supply chain issues. for our members, it's making sure that it is a domestic thing that continues to be able to, you know, backstop our, not only our labor agreements but our pension plans, rai retiree plans and make sure we have capital continuing to go into the coffers. on the announcement transition, from nippon on a direct plain with u.s. steel about the future

of our facilities and u.s. steel has been shutting down steelmaking capacity over the last you'res, firns production you need for national defense. can't be made from electric -- saying in furnaces in the same way. so, it is an issue. and they make a statement. what makes it so insincere is they make a statement, there'll be no layoffs, no plant closures, but in our discussions with them, they say, there will be no plant closures, no layoffs unless there's a business plan change. well, that's not worth the water that it's held in. so, their rhetoric on one side of the issue has a lot more to do with the short-term gain with their stock price and with institutional investors in terms of their short-term gain, not the long-term security of this country. >> so, you don't want to deal,

no matter, to go through? or is there a way to structure it with the right type of guarantees? i mean, we do live in a global world, and you know, we see beer makers, so many things are owned internationally, and if there's a global overcapacity, and if, for example, u.s. steel is going to keep closing plants here domestically, it's -- it would be a stronger company combined with nippon, would you ever endorse the deal, david? would the steelworkers ever give a thumbs up to it with the right guarantees? >> the problem is the transaction itself, nippon steel won't be a signatory to the labor agreement. they've structured it in which a subsidiary of nippon steel based in the u.s., which is really just a shell company, is the signatory to the labor agreement. nippon has no intentions of actually being the owner. there's real issues for us that

won't be public reporting on their finances, which a significant portion of our labor agreement involves our profit sharing, and of course, we need to be able to verify what that means. and likewise, we've got restrictions on their upstreaming ability. in order to take money out of a company, profits out of the company, transfer them somewhere else, and put debts on the company going forward, so those are real issues, and the way the transaction is structured, it doesn't work for us in any meaning. >> but it's not a sifs thing. it's more an economic concerns as far as you're -- >> i think it's a combination of both. >> you do? okay. >> not only -- one of the things that concern us is there are other multinational companies that we've done deals with, but before the transaction, they've reached out to us. they've made concessions. they've talked to us about what

our needs are and what our concerns are and guarantees need to be. in this case, nippon never reached out to us, never talked to us. u.s. steel refused to give us any information. so, all of a sudden, on december 18th, nippon is announcing that they're going to be -- it's just not factual. >> david, thanks. i think we understand where the issues are at this point. we appreciate you enlightening us on all those issues, david. thanks. >> thank you. when we come back, what to watch this week from nvidia as a critical industry conference kicks off. nvidia shares, this morning, up by about 2.7%. stay tuned. u' wchg quk x,yoreatin"sawbo" and this is cnbc. ron eats, sleeps and breathes hoops. and there's not a no look pass, double double, or buzzer beater he won't wax poetic on.

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a.i. leader nvidia is kicking off its highly anticipated gpu technology conference today. joining us right now on what to expect is ray wong, founder and principal analyst at silicon valley-based constellation research. i think the futures are up because of things the market is anticipating we might be hearing. >> definitely so. this is the davos of a.i. this is where the developers, up to 10,000 more folks will be

here converging and i think the highlights are really trying to understand where's jensen's vision in the future, and what new chips are out the door? and i think code name blackwell, the b-100 chips, is the one all eyes are on at the moment. this is expected to replace the h-100. it's going to be a lot faster than the h-100, which is the current leader. >> i've been trying to figure this out. nvidia has not really been very secretive about this. we know about the b-100, so what could they say that would surprise you or make you think, wow, there's more room to run than i even anticipated? >> there are a couple things that are important, and it's not just the chip. kind of like when the internet was being built. everyone was wondering, who's going to win, the people that provided the pipes, the picks and axes, but it turned out it was the companies that built their business models on the internet as a distribution channel. those were the ones that won. the question is really not just the new chip that's coming out and how they're building it. it's going to be the software

ecosystem, the partners that are on the next inning, and those second order, third order effects are going to be the companies that are going to be building the next stages of a.i. and jensen and co at nvidia have been investing in those companies, and you're going to see a lot of those partnerships on stage. >> that's what you want to know even more than the nvidia news on this? nvidia is up 2.7% this morning ahead of this, but you think there are potential partnerships that will be revealed or maybe the depths of those partnerships will be revealed, and that could be even more lucrative the? >> those are going to be the ones we're going to wonder, who's going to build that next business model? it's like that refrigeration example you hear, when refrigerators were being built, the winners weren't refrigeration companies, it was c coca-cola that outperformed everyone else. it's also, where are they going to grow next? datacenters are pretty much capped, so the question is, how is that sovereign a.i. strategy going to work out? how well are they going to do?

and also trying to understand that next order of the chips that they're building are so complicated, there's a two-die configuration that's potentially being used here, that no other company is going to be able to get to and that's going to be, what are the other order effects, tmc, super micro, if they can even catch up >> not to mention what they're going to be doing for china. there is the possibility they'll announce a new chip for china as well? >> of course. and they're going to produce another chip that's going to be less power, more constrained, but it will be interesting to see if china's interested in those chips at all. >> ray, thank you for joining us ahead of that. >> thank you. okay, so, the b-100's replacing the h-100? >> yes. >> and it's a three-nanometer. holy moly. >> exactly. >> i'm putting that in my brain. >> spit that out at a cocktail party. >> "h" is old, "b" is new. >> exactly. >> final check on the markets,

meanwhile, which have -- path of least resistance. continues to be up. now 62 points on the dow, over 200 on the nasdaq and the s&p pitching in as well. ten-year is at about 4.3%. it's fed day, the beginning -- 4.32% now. tomorrow, please join us. "squawk on the street" is next. >> bye. ♪ good monday morning, i'm david faber, and i am live from post nine here at the new york stock exchange. jim cramer, up early, he's always up, he's at one market in san francisco. that, of course, ahead of jensen huang's keynote at nvidia's gtc. we're going to hear a lot more about that. carl has the morning off. let's give you a look at futures as we get started here on "squawk on the street." you can see we're set up for a higher open after a down day