streak alive. somehow they're convincing themselves they like living in the dark. it's wednesday, march 20th, 2024. it's international happiness day. i'm happy as a clam. so is becky. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ can i explain? good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" right here on c nbc. we're live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm beck request quick along with joe kernen. andrew is out today. it is international happiness day, and how appropriate because it's also fed decision day. what could be better. rates are expected to remain unchanged, but it will be all about the language and the statements at the powell press conference where the markets will be looking for any clue on the next move for terest

rates. is he going to sound more hawkish, is he going to sound as dovish as he sounded the last time around? are rate cuts imnebts? u.s. futures ahead of all of that. a bit in the red, but it comes after the a day ofaverages and a new record-high for the s&p 500. rye now the dow is indicated off by 4.2. s&p down and nasdaq. there's the s&p 500. what is this? the 18th record-high? we keep racking them up. >> i was going say that here. >> oh, yeah, okay. yesterday all the major averages posted higher. 18th record close of the year. treasury yields, those have been higher as the treasury market seems to think rate cuts are off. the 10-year's at 428. crude oil closed higher

yesterday. this morning it's down by about 1%, 82.60. check out bitcoin, which last i saw was around 68,3. 63,088. >> we'll talk more about this. the nordic countries are not happy. they're telling themselves that. they want me to talk about this. intel is probably happy. the biden administration awarding intel nearly $20 billion in grants and loans from the c.h.i.p.s. act. they'll offer loans to build out manufacturing. it will cree yeet 30,000 construction and manufacturing

jobs at facilities in ohio and arizona. president biden will travel there later today to deliver remarks. we'll have an interview with pat gelsinger at 9:30 and again at "closing bell" at 4:00. >> intel is expected -- at least the administration says expect it to spend $100 billion of its own money investing in these things over the next five years. $20 billion a year, that's pretty significant. that's what you see from an at&t, verizon, on an annualized basis. >> if it always worked and you hired 30,000 people and everything works the way it should, it seems like it's a no-brainer and it should always work, but then you start wondering. you look at when the government

picks winners and losers. you hope you get the best use of capital that you have, and a lot of times the government is all -- you know, when we look back on the ev era and obviously we're moving to that, was it too fast? did we blow money too quickly? when the government tries to do things, usually they're not very good at it. >> you look at something like the interstate highway program and there were probably arguments, right? >> college bill after world war ii. >> you're right. >> why do we -- >> you look at -- >> why are there three things you can come up with? out of $33 trillion deficit, you come up with, well, we did build some highways. >> the idea that was passed in july of 2022 and it's taken almost two years to get the first money, i remember almost a year and a half ago, hearing whisperings behind the scenes from ceos like where's the money, where's it coming?

it's here. it's taking us a while. i think it's important to have american manufacturing of these things. your point is taken when there are strings that come along with this and when you're choosing winners, there are going to be issues. >> for security concerns, it's probably we need it. but you can't always say that or else there would be nothing called comparative advantage. there are things we don't need to do in this country. >> the issue is the other countries are spending heavily, investing in this. if we're not, we get left behind. when you're dealing with other countries -- >> -- you have to be right about it. and the government -- >> gina raimondo has gotten some pretty high marks with what's happening. she was putting out some of this today too. we'll continue to watch it. in the meantime shares of nvidia down slightly, but not before crossing $900 a share in tuesday's trading session, the company feeding off its ai

development conference where the developer says the new ai chip is expected to ship later this year, and ceo jensen wang said they're chasing a bigger share of the data market. hwang spoke to jim cramer on "mad money" last night. >> our technology is integrated into theirs, all the chipmakers, and the word connects it together, and that's the reason why nvidia is everywhere. we're in every cloud, every data center. >> you can catch more of jim's interview with jensen hwang tonight on "mad money." this is something to watch. this company has been skyrocketing in its own value, be driving so much more of the american economy too. samsung, electronic shares soared more than 5% in south korea, t trading after nvidia s the company with high band memory chips were in the qualifying stage for use and in the graphics processing units. samsung's daily gain was the

largest percentage jump since last year, in september. and the senate still wrangling over the house-passed bill that would effectively ban tiktok if bytedance does not sell that app. today senate committee chairman mark warner and congresswoman maria cantwell are classifying committees on the threat posed by foreign adversaries on american sensitive data including related to tiktok. the briefers will be several agencies including the doj and the fbi. jpmorgan chase giving more back to shareholders. the financial giant raised its quarterly dividend to 9.5%. 1.15 from $1 a share. the stock recently hit, as you can see, an all-time high. the yield before this was around

2.1%, which is pretty good. it's okay. you raise your differ avidend 9. the yield -- if the stock doesn't go up, the yield keeps going up until the stock does go up. >> we asked people before about what you do with a high yield. hopefully you solve that with a higher stock price. >> exactly. rather than cutting the dividend eventually. >> correct. chipotle has plans to split up the burrito for investors. the restaurant chain announcing a 50 for 1 stock split if it's approved by shareholders. it will be chipotle's first stock split ever and would begin trading on a post-split basis on june 26th. so, okay, it's almost at $3,000. that gets it down to just below 60 bucks. if you do a 50 for 1 stock split. that has been pretty phenomenal

too >> it's pretty cool. >> i can't believe it. we talk about how it's amazing how you see a two-fold increase in some of these tech stocks, up 82% over a year for a burrito company. >> yeah. that should. be surprising to anyone if they've tried mexican food. it's not my favorite place to go. >> it's too spicy. >> it's not too spicy. too american-fresh. they never combined doritos -- they got the guy from taco bell, but he was unable so far to replicate the beauty of taco bell. 50 for 1. that's why you invest. i would invest too. i wonder about mcdonald's.

if it had not spun off, would it have done well? >> might not. you need innovation for it. why didn't they spin it off and keep some of the shares. >> yeah, unbelievable. okay. the world happiness report is out, and the united states has dropped out of the top 20, down eight spots. it hit an all-time low ranking of 23. finland -- right. finland remains the world's happiest company. they tango because it's dark the entire year. but i guess because they don't really know any better -- >> i that don't know any better? >> yes, it is. come on. come on. when you go to davos, are you happy? >> you know what i like? >> i know it's switzerland. >> i love what they have for food. you can walk into a gas station. i can eat food from a gas station because it's like fresh

yogurt. >> do you think people in russia, in siberia are happy because they've got vodka? >> are they on the top23? probably not. >> it's right next to finland. >> but it's not. it's a world away. >> i'm kidding. finland's great. i've never been there. i think they're happy. small things make them happy. simple things in life. the simple things in life. i may get in trouble with people in finland. it's like ireland. i love ireland. >> i will say axios has a great piece out today that says if you look at toddlers, that's how you become happy. toddlers move five hours a day, they're constantly move, curious in the moment, ask all kinds of questions. >> do they got happy toddlers in finland? it's freezing and it's dark. >> you can find happiness. >> if you watch tv shows from nordic countries on netflix -- >> no. >> -- those people are happy. >> you sound so happy. >> i'm totally happy.

i live in the united states. i live in the united states. >> i think united states is the greatest place to live. >> it is. what would i not be happy about. i work three hours a day, live a good live, have two fabulous children, a wonderful wife, a fabulous co-worker. do not cross over. go back down. go back down thank you, thank you. okay. happiness in our country -- >> are you happy? >> there you go, mr. happy. >> poking his head out over here. >> you know that expression. >> go ahead and read. >> happiest country for a seventh straight year in the annual unsponsored report followed by -- >> u.n. sponsored -- >> -- followed by a place called demark. i don't know where that is.

oh, den market missing an "n." we'll take a look at why americans are so glum as we speak with author arthur brooks. we know what the leisure class prosperity breeds. philosophers know this. arthur will tell us that the degree if ity of work and being productive and collaboration and everything, once you -- >> co-workers. >> -- once you get to it, you don't worry about shelter, food. then you start getting bored like we're seeing with the millennials. they're the classic, you know, leisure class, don't know what to do with themselves. >> some millennials will argue they're working their butts off, they've got two jobs trying to pay for their houses. >> they're working their butts off so their parents let them stay. they've got all the apps >> i love having my kids. >> i know. we don't want our kids to leave.

what will the markets be listening for? we're going to jump into that next. later this hour, a business update from boeing. the ceo speaking today at a conference. we'll have a conference and talk to our top analyst at 8:15 eastern time. "squawk box" is coming right back.

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the fed is going to hold its next policy meeting. our next guest talksing stagflation. joining us now is a global strategist. it's good to have you on, there's a lot of cross-currents in this and things i have questions about. i guess your base k is continued strength in the economy makes rate cuts unlikely in your view, maybe even for the year and that the risk is since we don't get rate cuts we could eventually have a hard landing. >> that's correct. everything you said, joe, i think i saw no reason for the dovishness we saw from the chairman at the december 13th press conference. he repeated it before the senate banking committee earlier this

month talking about interest rates being quite influenced by it. the rally makes it more difficult to look at inflation at the time. it's better to be more cautious on the forecast in terms of expectations so that you don't have to look at the worst and that's the risk, i think, the fed is running. they give rise to expectations of rate cuts eventually to have to say the cost to rally to ease financial conditions, now we may have to tighten again. >> it seems insane -- it seems crazy if you've had 18 straight records and the averages, the stockmarket averages that you're thinking about cutting, but we do have an election coming. i know they're not political, but they can't help but feel the political winds a little bit. >> well, they are political.

i have always maintained they're a political empty. they're a political smoke screen. in reality they've been known for political changes. even if you go back in history to 1971, arthur burns, he rights into the minutes there have to be increasing rates in 1971 because we will not be able to do it in 1972, which will be an election year. there will be explicit references to politics, and to prevent that this is a political entity just doesn't make sense. look again at what are the other things they have to think about this week, joe. they have to think in terms of slowing quantity to tightening. in other words, the rate at which they put balance back into the market. but where were we? 2008 and the collapse of the

spread balance sheet was about 5% of gdp. but at the beginning of covid in 2020, it rose to 19%. by 2022, two years late, it had increased to 35% of gdp. so when are we going to go back to a more normal level? so that is not mentioned either. so we are left with increasingly dominant federal reserve in the market performance. >> i'll tell you one thing i didn't quite understand, sri. you think the 10-year might be a buy and the rates might be peaking. you think if it were to go up from here, something might break. it's not going to go up. i mean the 10-year doesn't -- i mean it's behavior doesn't dictate whether it's going break something. it goes where it's going to go, and things break. you hope that they don't, but that's the way it happens. you think that just the

possibility that something could break means the rates don't go up to 5% or whatever, 4.75. >> right. this is the sequence. this is the logical sequence as i see it. if you have the fed not cutting interest rates, not only today, but also may 31st or june 12th, then there is the pressure to push the 10-year yield, we see a 2-year yield as having gone up significantly. what happens then is that the problems of mid-size small banks, which bought 10-year treasuries at 2%, they're going to be more underwater than they are today. the commercial real estate issues are going to get even worse. those are the types of things that makes the fed reverse and increase liquidity, cut interest rates, and that in turn brings the 10-year yield down. that's the sequence of my

thinking. >> all right, sri. we'll check back as we do and wait for -- today's wednesday? >> yes, it is. hump day. mike, mike, mike, mike. >> yep. the day we hear what's on the fed's mind. maybe we'll get it. >> it's weird. yields have pulled back a little bit. maybe. maybe the treasury market's thinking it will be a little more dovish. we'll see. when we come back, two men have been accused of stealing trade secrets from tesla. that story's next. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cbc program is sponsored by t. rowe price. invest with confidence.

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welcome back to "squawk box." two men are being held for stealing trade secrets from tesla. they're being held in jail without bail. both are employees of a canadian battery producer that tesla acquired in 2019. they had access to drawings and other documents that allowed others to copy that manufacturing process. when we come back, boeing cfo giving us an update on the conference. we'll give you highlights and talk with ron epstein. that's up next. boeing shares down by 2.4%. as we head to the break, let's take a look at yesterday's s&p

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boeing's cfo talking about some of the highlights and phil lebeau has more. >> this briefing is happening in london. brian west just finished his presentation plus q & a about 15 minutes ago, and the one highlight, the one piece of new news is free cash flow dwied answer for the first quarter. now, nobody was expecting positive free cash flow among the analyst community, but now brian west is saying, look, we expect it to be negative $4 billion, $4.5 billion. spirit aerosystems, he did say if there is an acquisition, if boeing were to buy spirit, that

deal would be funded entirely by cash. there would not be some kind of a capital raise to fund that. and the focus right now, no surprise here, stable production when it comes to the 737 max, and that brings up the question of monthly production rates. brian west did say right now while they have the target of 38 per month this year, they're still below that, probably close to the 2023 production rate of 30 per month, though they expect to get to 38 by the end of this year, and the target of hitting 50, that is still out there as a goal of boeing's by 2025/2026. take a look at shares of boeing. remember, the company is in the process of updating its protocols. they'll be doing that with the faa, working with them so the faa signs off on this. remember the faa has kept them at 38 per month right now and they're out there in a great presence in retin, washington,

inspecting production, guys, and that's going to happen for some time. so the update is free cash flow guidance for the first quarter of negative $4 billion to negative $4.5 billion and shares of boeing at premarket. joe, i'll send it back to you. >> pretty good. phil, i guess a lot of those things we should have noun but maybe worse than we thought, don't you think, phil? >> i don't think worse. i think pretty much in line with expectations. $4 billion the $4.5 billion, people were close. it's not a surprise given the much lower volumes as well as the much higher cost as they're doubling down on making sure they're doing things the way they should be done. >> turns out it costs more to do that. phil, thank you very much. for more, we want to bring in ron epstein.

he just interviewed the boeing cfo. ron, let's talk through what you heard there. phil mentioned that free cash flow guidance. was that a surprise to you? >> it was probably a little worse than i was thinking, and my sense is it's probably a little worse than maybe what the consensus was thinking. when you flow that through the year, what brian did say was low single-digit free cash flow generation for the year. i think when you look at consensus numbers, it's higher than that, so folks are going to have to adjust the numbers down. you know, one of the things that brian did talk about is travel work. he mentioned it many, many times, and that's work that is done out of position. one of the big topics of conversation was really around, you know, this moving airplanes through the factory, shifting to doing it right, pacing yourself and making sure that everything gets done right. >> i'm not sure i understand

that. so moving the plane through the building, there was stuff not getting done in the right place? >> yeah. the focus was getting -- the tempo was keeping the airlines going, keeping the airplanes going through the building. >> whether the work's done or not? >> exactly. >> that sounds like a really big problem. i'm surprised it took this to kind of figure that out. >> yeah. i mean you're not the onlyone. so, i mean, they're doing a reset. he was very clear, you know. production rates are going to stay close to 38 until they get it figured out. most likely the risk is to the downside. >> wait, ron. what if the answer is just that you can't say we're going to get 50 because that requires moving the plane through faster than they can get the work done. they're going to get it figured out. maybe they can speed it up a

little. what if you don't get to the airplanes by 2025 or 2026. >> it will just take longer. will they get to 50? sure. it may take more investment, more time, more people. it's the target and the question is how are you going to get there and what investment will be required to do so. and the other point brian brought up is they're going to have to work with their kmerps in terms of airplanes that will be delivered later in some cases. they're shipping airplanes around. some wanted 737-10s wanted 9s or 8s plet it's kind of a refreshing reset. okay, this is who we are, this is where we are, and this is going to take some time. >> if they're going to need investments to do automation, add additional lines, whatever

that might be to get up to speed to get up to 50, what do you think the investments are, how much will it cost, and will they still be able to do that and do all cash to buy back spirit aerosystems? is there enough cash to go around? >> what brian was very clear about, they want to maintain their investment group ratings. in order to do that, they wound bundle their deal with cash and debt, that they wouldn't do an equity deal if spirit were to happen. and then in terms of funding, you know, what would be required to go to 50 if they need to add, you know, the capital base to do that, you know, they would have to fund that somehow too. and don't forget, they've got about $50 billion of debt on their balance sheet. so kind of any way you look at it, it's going to be a tight time from all the requirements that the company has to get. >> if this was a little worse than you were expecting with some of the guidance given, you already had a neutral rating on the stock. do you downgrade it? >> yeah. you know, i can't really talk

about that here, becky, you know that. we're always reviewing our models and kind of going through things. the tension with boeing is you had these execution issues, but you have a very robust market for commercial airplanes, and at the moment, there's really only two companies that supply the airplanes. so my sense is among investors, and this is where it gets sticky from a stock performer's perspective. investors are looking for value-oriented plays in commercial aerospace, and my sense is that investors can get comfortable that boeing will get itself on the right track. that could support the shares. so that's something, you know, we're always thinking about and working on. >> ron, thanks a lot. >> yeah, my pleasure. thank you. coming up, everyone could use a little more happiness in their lives, especially on international happiness day. who knew. we're going to get an update from our happiness guru, arthur brooks. that's next. and a reminder, get the st obef

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today's international happy finance day. we have arkansas thursday brooks, a professor emeritus at harvard. do i say happy happy day? what do you say to someone today? >> it's a good question. happy happiness, i suppose. this has been designated as such by the united nations. it gives us an excuse, yeah. >> we were joking around a little bit about, you know, how the u.s. fell out of the top 20. i've got my own reasons why. i mean, i don't think people

realize how good we have it here. there are reasons to make this a better place obviously, but there's a lot of spoiled entitled people that maybe don't have to worry about getting up at 5:00 a.m. to go out and work the fields or something. remember in the old days you'd get done at 7:00 at night and you'd be so happy to have a warm meal. you know, now, oh, my god, my app's not working. who knows why people aren't happy. as far as finland, they're looking next door. wow, i'm glad i'm in finland, right? that's why they're happy, because they're not in russia. >> yeah. i mean, the truth is -- well, you can't compare countries with each other. they love to do that at the international levels. it gives great headlines and it gives us an opportunity to be nordic-style of social democracies. the truth is there are different

groups of people. my parents left denmark because they didn't think it's fun or exciting. what americans have in common is happiness has to do with family life and adventure. it's not contentedness with things. no juchlkt we need to get happier as a people and society and what business leaders watching us right now to bring happiness along in their companies. >> too late. i've already judged. seriously, so you're going to move to finland? you're telling me you won't want to come back here? i have a question for you. you lived in barcelona off the coast. i can see maybe where i might be -- were you happier in barcelona than you are back here? >> yeah, because i fell in love and got married through, but there it has nothing else to do with that. right now i'm joining you from my ball ka in in lisbon where it's sunny and warm. people ask me all the time,

should i move to california because it's sunnier? i've got the data on that, joe. you'll be happy for six months but choose wisely. >> does that mean everybody's happy? that's what i think with the nordic social net. >> yeah. >> the euro social net, gdp growth has lagged in the united states by 40% for 40, 50 year, so they actually have 50% less than they would have if they had the same growth rate, not at that wealth or having that makes you happy. but i think these are -- the united nations co, did they comp with the survey? >> a lot of places do that. gallop does it. you have to have your own standards. everybody needs love and you have to do in society which

leads to your own happiness. i'm happy for thenordics. it's great. i don't want to live there. i'm an american. >> put me in detroit, the suburbs maybe. arthur, the political backdrop right now isn't make anyone happy in this ountry, i don't think, either, but, you know, these are 1%. these are -- these problems that we have seem like -- is thit th parties and the two candidates? >> for sure. the key thing for people, stop paying attention to politics. turn off the activists in media. turn off the activists inside your company who are making everybody misser aboutle and focus on two things. look, business in america is an opportunity to really make world happiness day come alive and to bring more happiness to america, and the way widow that is having

a merit-based system where people earn their success and people learn how to serve other people, how their job makes a difference to others. those are the secrets to happiness at work. everyone listening and watching us today, that's it. go make people happy by lifting them up on the basis of their merit, and you're going to celebrate world happiness day the way you're supposed to do it in america. >> getting away from that, the dignity of work and market as far as why things happen. we get further and further away from a lot of these things, arthur. i told becky, arthur has been doing this for five years and now he dropped out of the top 20. you've got to ramp it up or something or try -- it's not your fault obviously, but we're -- >> you have a heavy load to lift here. >> oh, yes, absolutely. >> pps was going to tackle our debt problems.

we're at $34 trillion. hire somebody else. >> we're going to have on our guest tomorrow who works on that issue. >> there's a lot to do. each of us has to put on our own oxygen mask first and serve others. love others, get happier. that's it. >> i don't want to put a mask on. that makes me unhappy. i'm never doing that again. >> oxygen mask. >> oxygen mask, okay. >> on the airplane, on the airplane. >> okay, but no masks. >> you've got to make yourself happy to make others happy. >> thank you, becky. >> you're welcome. >> happy mr. happy day. >> you got it. see you soon. >> see you. >> we'll run with it today. when we come back, the financial services committee is going to be holding a hearing on the role of the s.e.c. and the potential need for refirm. committee vice chair french hill will be here with a preview of it next. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird.

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later this morning, the house financial services committee is going to be holding a hearing on the role of the s.e.c. and whether there's a need for reform at the agency. joining us right now to talk about this and more is congressman french hill, he's the vice chair of the financial services committee. and, chairman, this was brought about, i believe, by the s.e.c.'s move to try and require more disclosure from companies when it comes to climate change. do you want to talk through what happened and your reaction to that? >> sure. well, becky, it's great to be with you. i think the chair has demonstrated how the committee is not being true to markets, capital, lick quidity formation. a lot don't have bipartisan support in congress, they don't have market participants across

the country. and now the chairman is losing in federal court. the issue of an 800-page climate disclosure for public companies and while he rolled it back from his original proposal, in my view, it should have been completely reproposed. it's been at the center of all our company public disclosures. >> a u.s. appeals court has temporarily stayed that proposal from going into play. your act, why don't you talk about that, would seek to do much more. >> right. we're going to propose to push it back using a congressional review act, a cra this is the one tool that the legislative branch has with filibuster protection over in the senate, that when we see a large

rulemaking by a federal agency, we can, with a 51% vote in both houses, push back against it. if the president doesn't veto it or we override a veto, that allows the congress to have done true oversight over the regulatory process. we've seen this a lot in the biden administration because i think they're going way beyond their statutory mandates, which is not where the federal courts are headed. they're pulling back from the chevron deference to our regulatory agencies, which i think is good, will be good for our economy and the private sector. chairman gensler, in my view, is not following the administrative procedures act in this case where he has a massive change in disclosure for public companies. he should repropose it and take comments again on the material changes that he made. >> congressman, it's staggering to me the change we've seen in the last 20 years in even talking about this issue.

if you are dumping chemical ways in the love canal or in the hudson or palestine, something like that, the serious environmental incidents that a company needs to account for, we're talking about the ubiquitous gas that's a pollutant in carbonated beverages, it's not a pollutant, and really with all the disclosures now, you're looking at 10, 15, 20, 50 years and tying an increase in adverse, purportedly, weather events for what companies need to be somehow quantifying. it's ludicrous. and we're nodding, yeah, yeah, net zero, all these things we

say, it's a big leap of faith to get there. what's wrong with us. >> you're right to be skeptical about it. even if you go back to 2017 when mark carney, the former chair of the central bank in london and mike bloomberg put forward a study to create financial disclosure for climate, they basically said it was very tough. they did not support scope one, scope two, scope three. they thought there would be a better way, and they thought the expense might outweigh the benefits because you cannot do these kinds of calculations across industries and even within industries that are comparable for the purposes of the material disclosure in a 10k or 10q. it's not possible. you're being held, as you say, to account something that may or may not happen in the future that we're completely unsure of. that's not the purpose of an

annual or quarterly financial statement. we cover climate in existing, for companies that believe it's a material impact on their business. so if you only build in coastal areas, you might discuss it in more detail in your business. if you only ensure coastal environments, maybe you're going to change up disclosure in your 10k or 10 company q. it should be material and should relate to the actual year in which we're in. and that's what i think the problem with it is. >> congressman, thanks for your time. >> you bet. great to be with you guys. coming up, it's time for -- it's go time for fed chairman powell. we don't mean he needs to leave or anything. he has to figure out what we're doing here. a preview of today's decision, plus new survey results on whether politics will play a role in the next interest rate move. ylee's realty! hi! this listing sounds incredible. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light.

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good morning. it is fed decision day. we'll have a preview of what chair jay powell may or may not say about interest rates. social media platform reddit set to price its ipo after the close. valuation and what investors can expect. plus, intel shares rising after the white house awards the chip maker billions in chips act funding. we'll take a look at that stock and other market movers straight ahead. 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'm joe kernen along with becky

quick. i was just thinking about something i'm going to do. >> brace yourselves. >> so we're picking intel, right in we're investing in intel as taxpayers. let's do a five year intel versus amd chart and think of the investors who invested five years ago and those who invested in amd five years ago or nvidia. >> if you're going to build factories in the united states -- >> how do we pick the winners? >> i think we would go with lots of winners. there's a lot of money in this bill. >> in general, you can pick the wrong horse to backand the government is an expert probably at doing things like that. we'll look at a five year intel versus amd and see if we're happy that we did intel instead of amd in five years. here are the futures. take a quick look. i think we're mixed. no one is going to do anything until we hear from jay powell

until we're down 30 points. the ten year is something that could change as well. 4.279. the fed wrapping up its two-day policy meeting this afternoon. steve liesman with a preview of what investors can expect when it comes to rate cuts. good morning. to explicit change in policy expected today but markets are looking for significant changes in the outlook for both policy and the outlook from the fed. let me show you relative to those using various metrics. 1.4 is the gdp outlook. unemployment expected by the fed to end the year at 4.1. not far off of it so far, 3.9%. core pce expected by the fed. we've been running a little hotter there. two months of worse than expected inflation. the fed funds now at 5.4.

the fed expected to go to 4.6. there's concern the fed raises that outlook for this year. only an upward change in two dots in the dot plot. the beginning of the fed's discussion about ending its balance sheet, unwind it more than double that balance sheet during the pandemic to nearly $9 trillion. it's down about 1.5 trillion in the past year. the cnbc fed survey for another trillion or so to come off it and that is before the fed is done with qt potentially in january. the survey asked about politics and the fed, found 73% believe it will have no influence about whether to cut. 12% think it may be more likely to cut.

the decision to reverse course and hike rates if needed. 68% say the election won't influence the timing of fed rate cuts, which is sort of interesting, becky. if you look at the outlook for how the fed cuts rates, according to the survey anyway, it's up and down, up and down, skirting around the election in november. becky? >> i'm not questioning jay powell's credibility or anyone else's, i think in an effort to not look political, you're going to try to steer away from that. the political outlook that doesn't have some impact on the fed overall, i think that's why when you're looking, if they don't start soon, does that mean they're going to have to put off cuts until the very end of the year? >> i don't know. if all things are equal, becky, and you can have no influence on

the election and dance around it, then i think it's okay. look at the survey we had from yesterday and the percent probability on rate cuts. and what you see is june becomes the first one that people think it will happen in. that's not the one we're looking for but that's okay. an increase in september and it's down again in november and up again in december. i think there was a discussion even before thinking about the election that you could have this every other meeting thing which would give the fed time to see the impact or the influence of what it's doing. i think there was going to be a cautious rate cut scenario with or without a presidential election. >> i don't think it matters what they do one way or the other. donald trump since february has already been saying he wouldn't appoint, reapoint, jay powell because he think he's too political. i think it's hard for the fed to do much of anything without falling into that political

context that the republican nominee is already kind of laying out there, the presumed republican nominee. >> i'm sure powell doesn't give two wits if donald trump will appoint him or not. i'm darned sure of that, in fact. >> it puts a political focus and microscope on the fed no matter what they do. >> some fed chairs may think it's a badge of honor to be fired by donald trump. it's another way to think about it. >> steve, what's your question today, if you're thinking, do you mind telling us or do you not want to give it away? >> one thing i'm interested in, becky, the current guidance on when the fed will cut is in the negative. we don't think we're going to cut until we have enough confidence. what is the positive? what are the conditions? can you give us more detailed look at what it would take for you to have the confidence to

cut interest rates. i'm interested in the neutral rate. i don't know if you remember but yesterday we talked about the neutral rate. the rate that won't increase inflation or decrease inflation, and it's 3.1 higher than the fed is at. i'm interested to see if it comes up today, which will tell you how much restraint being put on the economy. given that we've had good growth and even declining inflation at 5.40. are you really clamping down or maybe there's not as much restraint as you thought. >> thank you. we'll see you a little later. >> pleasure. the remaining six spending billions to fund the government, but time is running out to pass them all. cnbc's emily wilkins joins us with the latest. good morning, emily. >> reporter: good morning, joe. stomach me if you've heard this

one before, we're three days away from a partial government shutdown and lawmakers still have yet to pass any of the funding bills needed to keep it open. there was a breakthrough. the white house and republicans did reach on spending. it's the final puzzle piece in this larger $1 trillion package to fund the government that includes funding, financial agencies as well as health and human services, among others. the devil is always in the details here and the details are still being written. senate majority leader chuck schumer laid out yesterday, give a listen. >> i want to be clear, there's a lot of work to do in the coming days. if both parties proceed in the same manner as two weeks ago, quickly, constructively and without partisan dithering, i'm hopeful we can finish the appropriations process without causing a lapse in government services.

>> reporter: once everything is on paper which could be today, might be tomorrow, a race for the house and senate to pass these bills. while we expect bipartisan support, the congressional process is designed to move things slowly, which means there's a real chance of a short shutdown going into the weekend. that won't be a huge issue so long as the government is then ready to fully open on monday, but if a longer shutdown occurs, there could be issues at several agencies and this includes the irs having to suspend several of its services at the end of tax filing season. danny werfel warned reporters earlier this year a shutdown would increase the risk of a rocky filing season. while key functions would continue, others including audits and most legal work would need to stop. joe? >> i've learned not to make any jokes about the irs.

the audits would stop. every season is rocky for irs filing season. it is for me, emily. it just is rocky. it's always rocky trying to figure everything out. >> reporter: yeah. you always see these congressional lawmakers come up with bills, we can have americans file on a post card. i want to see those get more play around this time of year. >> just as an aside what i liked about your report, when you tossed to the sound bite, you said give a listen. what does take a listen even mean? if you give a listen, you're saying, here's -- just listen to this. the other one is not even english. everybody says it. it's like anchor 101, take a listen. take a listen. i like it. give a listen. thank you, emily. >> thanks for giving me a

listen, joe. i appreciate it. >> you are welcome. >> here quickly, and europe right, becky, maybe amd is more of -- maybe they're not the foundry or anything like that, but my only point is when the government picks who to invest in, they're picking intel this time. if you view taxpayer money and money that the government spends, they keep calling it an investment. we invest. blah, blah, blah. we invest here. they're not just blowing money. they're investing all the time now with the biden administration. all right, we're investing. we're investing, how much, $20 billion in intel? >> well -- >> it's a loan. why intel? >> because they're looking to build plants in the united states. >> micron doesn't? >> it's not going to be just intel. it heavily favors intel over amd. >> you see the point. >> that's because amd and nvidia

use outside companies -- >> they contracted out. >> not in the united states to build them. this is about more to secure the supply chain and we are independent which we came to the conclusion when we realized we were outsourcing, we would like to build the factories and fabs here. then, yes, you, too, can apply for the money. >> is intel the only company that can build foundries? >> definitely not. there was a spinoff, i believe. amd is looking at new plants, too. there is a global foundries that was a spinoff from amd that is qualified for $1.5 billion because they would build plants here. >> you look at that, the government invests money. >> i understand the basic premise, if you are trying to build things to shore up our

supply chain and built in the united states and bring jobs here -- >> for comparative advantage, the government, i don't think, to allocate capital. >> i think this might be one of those times. i am not saying the government will be efficient in this. it's taken them in july. i think there have been other plants built in other places that have been way fast tracked for this. it is not an efficient measure. i think a bigger problem as a taxpayer if you're giving out to companies, i would have a bigger problem with that. >> i don't know if i would or not. it depends on all the dynamics of the -- it would be nice to build everything here. >> if you're doing that, don't even spend any taxpayer dollars. >> you're not a globalist at all anymore. we should do everything here? >> i do think there is a need for infrastructure here that we

are far too reliant on other countries. >> maybe some unfriendly countries. you don't want to close down trade, right? >> no, no, no. i don't want to close down trade -- >> we can't manufacture -- >> i have a problem giving money to airbus over boeing. >> sneakers or fabrics, things that don't make sense to do here? >> no. but i think for security purposes there are reasons like boeing versus airbus. i want subsidies to go to boeing not airbus. >> we have to get a good return. i'm not convinced. social media company reddit expected to price its ipo after the close. a preview of what investors can expect when the trading kicks off tomorrow. in the meantime, check out crypto prices this morning. bitcoin 63,000 down 2.5%. as you know it bounced around quite a lot over the last several months.

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all right. reddit set to price after the bell today. joining us with a look at what investors can expect is tom sosnoff, founder and ceo of tastylive. tom, you're an investor in reddit. when did you buy into this? >> last summer. >> and that was when the valuation was for $10 billion for reddit? >> no, no. i did it on a private offering. insiders were selling and it was a $5 billion valuation. >> so what do you think about the ipo the day it's pricing? tonight it will price after the bell. tomorrow we'll see the first trade. where are you thinking about all of this? >> i actually -- obviously i

like it because i think it's going to, you know, trade a little higher than that level. i think that's good. i think reddit's going to be a really interesting play because it's going to be the only kind of tradeable for most investors. the only tradeable pure, like social media app. i kind of like it from that -- in that regard. >> there was a story on reuters yesterday that was suggesting that this was oversubscribed, but we've heard from other sources maybe to brush that off, oversubscribed, i think them said, by four to five times. what do you think the level of interest is? >> you know, we don't do ipos. we're a brokerage firm, but we don't participate in ipos. it's just not our business. from what i've heard, it's a little bit tough to get the stock. i mean, i know that they offered the stock to people that have been to their moderators and people that have been working

with reddit. i think that's really good that people have skin in the game. inheard it's a pretty tough stock to get on the ipo, but i haven't tried myself. i don't know. >> the other issue is the redditers, anyone who gets the stock, isn't facing a lockup. all of those people getting a little payback for the volunteer work they've been doing for the site for a long time who then decide to drop it pretty quickly. does that concern you. >> it doesn't concern me. i think generally, you know, if you've been -- if you've been on reddit and you've been participating for the last 10 or 15 years or the last two years, whatever it is, you're probably just going to be naturally a cont contrarian, a little bit bearish. i think that eventually the marketplace will win you over. so i think that's -- i think it might be a nice payday. >> meaning that you plan to be a long-term shareholder? you're not going to sell your stock in the next few months? >> well, i can't.

anybody who participated in previous rounds -- >> you're locked up. >> we're locked up for at least six months. >> tom, reddit has been such a fan favorite, a place people love to go and has such huge loyalty from the people who are users but the company has never been able to make money. why do you think that is? >> they've never had to. i know that's crazy. one of the nice things about read at this time going public, it's going to force them to learn to be profitable. that's happened to a lot of companies. when you're a private company, it's easy to raise capital. you have less incentive. once you go public, there's no escape, no other path you can take. so i think reddit is very natural and will learn to monetize. their participation level is really steady.

they will learn to monetize their customers. >> just this week we heard this claim from nokia about patent infringement. have you been able to dig into that or get any details on it? >> not dig into it but i read about it like you and everybody else. i feel like it's kind of a pr play, a cheap shot because they figure they'll get press on it. it's almost like every time a company files for an ipo, they think it's an easy settlement. i don't give that any leverage whatsoever. >> okay. tom, thank you for joining us today, tom sosnoff. >> thanks, becky. coming up, a look at what's moving. the futures right now down on the dow, up on the nasdaq. time now for today's aflac

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all right, welcome back to "squawk box." i'm dominic chu with a look at this morning's movers. a couple of dow components. first intel, those shares are higher by 3.5% at this point, over a million shares of trading volume. the chip maker will be the beneficiary of the latest round of federal funding from the chips act. the biden administration unveiled plans to award up to $8.5 billion in direct funding to help further boost chip manufacturing capacity here on u.s. shores. intel could, by the way, get up to another $11 billion in loans from that program as well. president biden is slated to announce that award in arizona later on today. we'll get more on that story for that massive funding deal when pat gelsinger joins "squawk on the street." a must-watch interview to talk

about the state of the computer chip business. moving on to boeing, which is down roughly 1.5% at this point, just around 75,000 shares of volume. the aerospace chief financial officer brian west offered an update on current plans for the highly scrutinized 737 model saying the plan is to keep production at 38 aircraft per month. it will impact cash flow and will only accept fully conforming fuselages from spirit aerosystems. the update is the latest development on the safety and manufacturing processes after a midair blow-out of a door panel back in january. check out shares of general mills, up about roughly, well, 8.5% -- or general mills. the packaged food company may be best known for cheerios and haagen-dazs ice cream, earnings and revenues helped along by results in north america and in

its pet food business like blue buffalo help offset international markets. let's move on to what's happening with freshly prepared stuff in chipotle mexican grill, up 6.5%, set twhag could be a new record high price. this morning thin trading market volumes here but shares get a boost after it announced 50 for 1 stock split. shares will be priced at $56 a share. it doesn't change the market value but could get more stock accessibility to employ years and investors. breakfast burritos on my mind. back over to you. >> we were talking burritos earlier this morning, that is a big burrito to split, though. amazing they've never split the stock. >> amazing they've never had to. >> amazing the growth over the year up more than 82%, we were looking earlier this morning.

that is technology company, sort of, returns. you show the stock and the returns on that, it would be hard to guess that was a burrito company. >> it's probably like the one local to me, there's always a line. always a line. almost to the door. >> that's kind of the bad aspect of it. it can be a long process to even get something. >> joe, you know what it is, i'm more of a taco bell guy, but chipotle, it's the young kids, the high school kids in my town go to chipotle. >> they like cilantro. >> i don't. >> you're right, taco bell, enough said. that just ends the debate right there. >> thanks, dom. we'll see you later. when we come back, we debate president biden's tax plan. and later, bitcoin backer and co-founder of anchorage digital diogo monica will talk about crypto's recent moves and regulations in washington. "squawk box" will be right back.

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president biden's budget calls for tax increases on corporations and the wealthy. got to be fair, robert. we've got to be fairer. >> restore fairness. >> get fair here. joining us with a look at some of those potential hikes and changes, i'm just trying to figure, how does 70 sound for you, 70%? that's not fair enough? >> it used to be 90. >> let's do 90 again. >> rockefeller paid it. for right now president biden is saying the tax plan would shrink the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade, but it also amounts to $5 trillion tax hikes on companies and high earners. in total there would be over 100 tax increases and changes in this budget. the largest source of new revenue would be raising the corporate income tax rate from

21% to 28%, predicting $1.4 trillion from that over ten years. the billionaire minimum tax from unrealized gains for those $100 million or more, to generate $500 billion. a hike in the net investment taxes for high earners estimated at $800 billion. you hike the capital gains rate to over 44%, that's right, 44. that would add another $500 billion in revenue. eliminating trust loopholes for the estate tax, raising on share buybacks and andrew's favorite, closing the loophole. earners making over $400,000 would foot most of the bill along with companies and passthroughs, those making below $400,000 would presumably get a tax cut of over $2 trillion. >> thanks. you're going to be here, right? you have all these numbers.

>> not going anywhere. >> what's the top 1% paid? >> 46% of the federal income taxes are paid by the top -- >> top ten? >> over 80%. yeah. >> 90% more fair, in your view? >> depends on which side of the aisle. >> former deputy assistant for economic policy at the treasury, a professor at yale law school and a yale school of management professor, and a heritage foundation economics research fellow. natasha, i'll start with you. these probably aren't going to survive as they are right now and become law, but what's your wish list? is that a pretty good summary of it, what robert just talked about, or some things you like, some things you wouldn't go for? >> big picture, what i hope we all can agree on is the united

states faces quite substantial revenue needs. over the course of the next decade, it will rise to 119%. social security and medicare trust funds are set to be extinguished. we need to figure out how to raise revenue and the president's budget does exactly that, it proposes $3 trillion of deficit reduction over the corpse of the next decade, and it does so by asking corporations and the very wealthy to pay their fair share in ways i think make a lot of sense. the top have 41% tied up in unrealized capital gains that, in all likelihood, are never going to face any tax liability because upon death they're going to be passed down to their heirs and um get a step up in basis. i think that's unfair. the american people think that's unfair. i think that is reflected in these proposals. >> there's a revenue side and a spending side. whenever we try to address it,

we try to do both. we spent a lot of money during the pandemic. the budget just proposed, natasha, is almost -- i mean, it's down a little bit from there, but with the economy we have right now, which is pretty strong, we aren't spending any less. we're increasing spending at the same time. is that okay with you? that's why we're going -- that's one of the reasons we're going to 119% of debt to gdp. if you're going to ask for more revenue, don't you think that on the other side we ought to offset that with some spending cuts? >> i think it's important to take seriously, to your point this is accounting both sides of the ledger here, but i think the point that's really important for your viewers to grasp and that you well understand, the u.s. is a low tax country. we are 38th with respect to the tax revenue we bring in, and that's because of over the course of the last decades

regular people are paying the same share of taxes, labor income is paying an even greater share of taxes than they have historically. because of all of these complex corporate structures like partnerships with loopholes, like the one andrew doesn't like with respect to carried interest, we've seen revenue tail off from high earners and the structures they own and from large corporations. and i think that's why on the revenue side we need to think seriously about these raisers while totally agree we also need to be serious on the spending side as well. president biden's proposed $3 trillion of deficit reduction, if you look to former president trump and what his economic plans amount to, they amount to $5 trillion of deficit increases. so there's a very clear fiscal choice on the table in november. >> your turn, joel. >> thanks for having me -- first get a few facts straight here. let's keep in mind the so-called rich already pay a big,

disproportionate share of the total income. the top 1% right now are paying close to half of all income taxes and, by the way, that proportion actually grew following the tax cuts and jobs act. 45% of the working age population is not working at all right now. and if you look at the bottom 10% of income earners, they're seeing a net tax credit of 5%. so fairness aside, the rich are paying their fair share. what i'm even more concerned about when we assault those who are actually creating wealth, it's not just that is immoral, it actually harms the people that were trying to help because it's not as if the wealthy are keeping all of the resources locked up in a vault somewhere. that money is invested. it's invested in companies, invested in productivity, enhancing features. that's a big part of the reason why our middle class has grown so much wealthier, 25% increase in real family income because of the big surge in productivity

due to the fact we do have a lower tax rate on the wealthy than elsewhere in the world. >> you're right, the trump tax cuts increase investment, wages, and turn out to be more progressive, but if you extend those the way we hear the trump administration probably would like to, that's going to be incredibly expensive. how would you pay for it given the deficit? >> we do need dramatic reforms. we're spending $88,000 for a family of four on federal spending and borrowing $25,000. this is not a revenue problem. revenue as growth economic output has been stable for decades now. whether you have a 30% tax rate on the top, we need real reforms. neither candidate has put forward a plan to address the long-term cost drivers. the so-called social security

trust fund will be completely out of money in 2034 which means politicians will be forced to either raise taxes largely on the middle class to pay for that or resort to the federal reserve printing presses. neither is a viable option. if we want to see our middle class continue to grow and to see total wealth produce increase, we have to address the long-term cost drivers. raising taxes, like the president's proposing, not going to resolve the problem. it will hamper economic growth. >> natasha, it's tough, a wealth tax, to do. i don't know what kind of accountant you'd need. so many problems, you pay one year and then the assets go down the next year. it was unrealized. it's a nightmare. would you at least concede that w-2 earners, state and local taxes, if europe at 50, 55%, something like that of what you make, the real issue you

identified are those unrealized gains and all the money rich people have. would you be content to leave the people that are working through july 31st for the government and then they get a little bit left over after that, can we leave them alone and -- >> asking for a friend, joe? >> i live in new jersey. i'm asking for a friend. is there a way you can go after that huge amount of money you're talking about without adding more burden to the w-2 types, the poor w-2? >> there is. i want to make a couple of points to what joel was saying. the first is that, to your description of unrealized capital gains, the affected tax rate on the forbes 400 on billionaires in this country is 8%. that is lower than the tax rate paid by middle income americans.

>> that includes unrealized gains. >> exactly. as defined by the current irs. let's be clear about that. >> just to be clear, i totally agree with you, it is an income definition, but just to be clear, those unrealized capital gains are the source of wealth for the wealthiest. if you leave them out, you're creating a source of inequity and creating a revenue problem. >> if they're unrealized, that's not one and the same, natasha. if they're unrealized, unless you're borrowing against them -- >> and if you're borrowing against them as billionaires are doing -- >> if you're not borrowing against them, they are not -- this is a crazy way of going about it. >> the real tax rate -- >> borrowing against them, you should be taxed. >> it is probably over 20, 25%. >> i totally agree with that -- >> if we're talking about a tax on unrealized capital gains, we're talking about in actuality a property tax and the property

tax levied by the federal government is unconstitutional. beyond that, beyond the unconstitutionality of it, that would be a tremendous hampering of growth. we're talking about confiscating capital at that point. that is going to be a direct impact on the middle class by depressing long-term productivity growth. >> i want to say a couple of things about the importance of revenue raising and also about this point about w-2 earners that we started with. i fully, fully agree with the fact that thinking through revenue from the top is like an incredibly complicated question. i also agree with the fact, and i hope all of you agree with the fact, that today our tax system a source of inequity because of unrealized capital gains and thinking seriously how to address them, in part, frankly, because we have a tax system that allows the very top to evade their tax obligations.

as are large corporations are not paying. microsoft owes $30 billion in back taxes that they're not paying that they owe today. so i think there's a lot of space for us to do much better than we have historically from these groups. >> joel, thank you. natasha, i think you should be the person we have when we have these -- i didn't get mad. i didn't say, oh, my god! >> and she knows her facts. they both know their facts. we love those guests. >> it's an international happiness day and i'm still happy, even though we had this debate. joel, you're always good on that side. and you are here just to keep everybody honest. >> supplying the numbers. >> which sometimes i don't like, keeping everybody honest. >> i like. >> you like it. thank you, one and all. when we come back we'll dive into crypto and the move in digital currencies.

we have fintech founder and crypto backer diogo monica. "squawk box" will be rhtacig bk. you know what's brilliant? boring. think about it. boring is the unsung catalyst for bold. 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. that's why pnc bank strives to be boring with your money. the pragmatic, calculated kind of boring. moving to boca? boooring. that was a dolphin, right? it's simple really, for nearly 160 years, pnc bank has had one goal: to be brilliantly boring with your money so you can be happily fulfilled with your life... which is pretty un-boring

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$61,000 earlier today. right, becky. never weptnt under 60. doesn't mean it won't. joining us to talk about the crypto market, bitcoin's volatile week, transitioning from president to chairman of anchorage, and people who don't know, diogo monica is the portuguese version of diego, which may or may not be the spanish version of james. >> right. that's right. i describe it as diego is the spanish version of diogo. >> came first. portugal. >> spanish origin means "the planter." par for your profession. >> we have seen stuff happen with bitcoin that, you know if you're not -- if you don't have a firm conviction there are times it shakes anyone holding

to the core. last time, to 65. next thing it was 17. went to 20, next thing you know it was 2. something like that. so this is probably not surprising that we were at -- what is your high? about 74? where were we last week? around 74,000. >> right. >> immediately we go, down as low as under 61. that's a, a big haircut. why? i thought that, you know, everybody's holding on. so etfs buying them can't get any. the supply, how can that move out whatever it is that huge percentage move? >> told me a year ago we'd have a correction down to 63,000 i would have been ecstatic. would have been fantastic price for us. yes. etfs have had a big impact on the price of differ rening.

what it men, it means regulators can't stand in the way of legitimate products and financial product forever. what we're going to see, what the market is actually counting on, is definitely a set of new crypto products that will come to market soon. ethereum etfs, solano etfs, many others comes to market. it's the starting gun that's happening and not really just bitcoin etf on its own. >> one of our frequent guests, pretty good in a lot of different areas, tom lee said that the institutional adoption, just the overjaoverall adoptionr than they thought. >> one of the things necessary for a bitcoin etf to be approved in the first place, we needed all the infrastructure at the same level of quality and reliability as the infrasinfr infrastructure for traditional finance.

what we've got. with companies like anchorage digital. the only federally chartered bank in the u.s. over $50 billion. a big player helping institutions custodies buy and sell and stake assets. >> we've had people come on and say last time when bitcoin hit a new high, it does x in the next month. we've had people come on say after having, which we saw a couple years ago, bitcoin does y over the next couple months. do you expect -- what do you expect? when's that happening? next month? is it april? >> yeah. around next month. most exciting thing about joining venture general partner i'm a vinter investors. they're not investment funds. it's really time horizon seven to ten years. we have liquid positions and tokance and invest in equity and take a very long-term view to the market. to the part of your question, the only way to keep sanity in a

market with this level of volatility that's baked in. >> sometimes people use a stock to flow model to try to value bitcoin and compare it to gold. when you do have a haveing, you'll have have as much over that next year to base your stock to flow on. i mean, just by math. if it was worth x, it would be wo worth 2 x. >> the other side, it's baked in already. percentage of inflation on the basis and maybe shouldn't call it inflation. new gold actually dug from the ground. big coit is programmatic and algor algorithmic's we know when it will happen, exactly when it will predict a total supply never pass 21 million. >> with gold, when prices go up, more people can try and find more. it's not, you can't count on exactly what the fixed rate of

production per year is. that changes. with bitcoin it can't change. >> correct. gold pretty steady but bitcoin crypto graphic and code. >> it is code. it's mathematics. all of that taken into consideration, can still be either worth at any given time 17,000 or 65,000 or 75,000. what are you -- talking seven to ten years, but can it go back to 40,000? will it? >> exciting thing about being a venture invertors have to 10x at least. >> go back to 40? >> could to go to 40? >> volatility, yes, back to 40. could go higher. >> upsetting part or exciting part of it. >> just part of it. i've been in this phase almost ten years and started with my co-founder anchorage digital seven years ago and seen five-plus cycles.

easier to go through a bear market. nchg bear markets are better times to build because a lot less attention and the ecosystem. actually building technology and you're not just talking about the price action. >> but there will be waves and i guess tides that come in. just reading about how there was actually outflows first time in bitcoin etfs. >> right. price is convenient to bring attention to the space. every time you bring attention to the space what we realize more people join. more importantly, more developers. more entrepreneurs, more engineers start building in the space. those don't go away when the market eventually corrects and price comes down and will stay and build more companies and i'm most excited about as general partner, to invest in a new way of entrepreneurs. >> we had michael saylor on. amazing. just watching him for a while. talked how you don't look at it as digital gold necessarily, but more as digital property.

therefore, if you own a billion dollar building in new york you're not always asking can i use part of that building to buy a pizza. not always coming up with a question, can it be a currency. but what is the usage case for bitcoin? we know about ethereum and other crypto assets that can be used in all kinds of different ways, but what's the -- i can't imagine that -- that the unbanked in some of these countries with rampant inflation where they worked their butt off and a week later don't have anything from all the work put in. if they had bitcoin it stays for -- for whatever they were paid for they still have that ask right? can they use it? is that for the billions of people that have, i don't know how many run banks, but can it work for them? the technology can absolutely help, because one of the things true about bitcoin not true about whatever currency folks are -- currently inflated you can have self-custody of this.

nobody can take it away from you. very, very different. makes it awkward to look over the short term as a store value. you know over the long term one of the if not "the" best performing asset of the past 15-plus years. reality even over long periods of time a value that worked. technology underneath is actually supporting several many different use cases. for example, talk about how it has been the field of cryptocurrencies giving us something like stablecoins. tied to the dollar. more successful than bitcoin has in all of these countries with hyperinflaution because steady value of the u.s. dollar. at least same schedule of inflation of the u.s. dollar with ercharacteristics of cryptocurrencies in your wallet and incredibly valuable for someone without access to financial institution. >> dollar and bitcoin can co-exist? >> yes. they're not in competition with

one another. >> they are and they aren't, i guess. >> depending which -- >> hard core -- >> say absolutely are. >> yeah. diogo, thank you. >> thank you to are having me. >> do you know where you were originally from? >> grew up in lisbon but actually born in california. >> nice places. hard to pick. not happy. finland. people only happy in finland. go figure. >> pretty exciting country, portugal. >> beautiful. i know. it is just after 8:00 a.m. east coast and you are watching "squawk box." i'm becky quick along with joe kernen. u.s. equity futures this hour are mixed at this point. nasdaq actually indicated up 50 points. s&p up 2.5. dow indicated down by 32 points. coming on the day we're going to be hearing more from jerome powell and company. treasury yields a little lower than they had been yesterday.

you can see now the ten year at 428. the two year at 468. back below 4.7% there. bring in our senior markets commentator mike santoli. mike, what are you watching today? >> can't avoid watching for the fed, what the fed does what jay powell says. watching from a high perch. yesterday 18th s&p 500 knew all-time high of this calendar year. that's basically a record pace of all-time highs. go back decades. the most record high s&p done in a calendar year around 72. we got 18 and about a quarter. that basically annualized to just about best ever. can't obviously counter on us continuing to click thus way. i point out we've flattened outalities in the s&p the last weeks. churn underneath the surface. much of technology has actually sort of lost a little bit of momentum, but enough things are working we are clicking higher. you minced the bond market. i like to look at government

bonds in price terms getting a sense where buyers might want to come in, where they have in the past. this is the government, u.s. treasury etf of all maturities average maturity nets out to about seven, eight years. you see a line. basically aside tr that liquidation we had back in the late summer and the fall when ten year went to 5% people worried about abundant supply, this is an area that in theory could be support people find value in bonds pap decent bond, treasury option just yesterday. for as much as i would say this market is maybe due to some kind of a pullback. haven't had a 3% dip in four, five nos look at jpmorgan. blasting to a record high. really separating itself from the rest of the banks. and microsoft on a one-year basis. looks pretty much like the same chart. not treated as risky financials, commercial real estate exposure. a massive blue chip top ten s&p

500 holding. enough stocks of different kind making new highs. >> mike, other thing i point to is the really low volatility. watching the vix, 13. right? >> it's 13. been bumping along this area. a couple times it's actually ticked up towards 15, the market got nervous. then obvious to me there be these algorithms. goes above 15, buy stocks. we think still a calm, tight uptrend. boring is bullish when it comes to market. never say it's going to stay that way forever. things do come out of the blue. see what the fed has for us today. >> okay. mike, thanks a lot. for more on the market now we bring in jeremy siegel. professor emeritus of finance at university of pennsylvania's wharton school of business and chief economist add wisdom tree. jeremy, the thing that i've been watching pretty closely lately is just how treasury yields

moved up. a little lower today but have moved up substantially in recent weeks getting hotter than anticipated inflation numbers. yet the stock market keeps hitting new highs. if the fed comes out and is hawkish today can that continue. i think the fed will be hawkish today. income, expecting the number of cuts to decline from the three we saw in december to two, and by the way, i wouldn't be surprised if more people, more fomc members predicted less than two than more than two. >> mm. >> i think the economy remained very, very strong. stronger than the fed expected. very definitely. so they're in no rush to actually cut the rates. so i think -- i'm not sure the market is quite prepared for that.

you know, i've been hearing that most investors think they'll do three cuts by year-end, but i don't think so. i think right now they're predicting two. of course, circumstances will evolve as they evolve. can't predict the future, but at least at this particular point i think there's going to be a shift to hawkishness today at the meeting. >> jeremy, how much of the gains we're seeing in the market do you think is predicated on the fed being more aggressive with rate cuts? how much is just based on this great economy itself? because i guess the good news in all of this is if the fed's not cutting rates it's because the economy's looking pretty good? >> absolutely. said that before. it's more important that the economy stay strong and earnings stay up than whether the fed cuts in june, july or september or october. as i said, probably some of the worst news, if you heard they're going to cut 100 base points the

next three, four months. i would say, oh, my god. what happened? this is not good. it is absolutely the strong economy that's driving the earnings and that's why they seem to be ignoring whether, hey, whether we are really going to have three or four cuts because it's more important for economic strength for the stock market that when they're going to cut. what is important is that the fed doesn't make a mistake and wait too long. but there's no sign that if they see the economy really slowing that they won't then cut the rates. i think that was the signal given last december, that encouraged the markets still on the table with, we see weakness. we will cut rates. if we don't see weakness, then at this particular point, we're happy with the rates as they are. you know, they're measure of inflation is stickier. my measure is, it's lower because of the shelter distortion, but nonetheless, the economic activity is the main

mover of how they change the fed funds rate. >> okay. if you're right, they're more hawkish, don't cut rates, we do continue to see the strong economy. what's your guess for where stocks wind up later this year? >> well, i think that you know again they might hiccup at -- we get that 2:00 dot plot. i think might be a hiccup. i think during the news conference powell is actually, repeats a lot of what the projections are. he's not going to back off, although he's, you know, i think that -- i think that today might not be the best day for risk assets, but i think once people realize, hey, you -- once he says, because the economy's so strong. i don't think this bull market is over. the momentum is still there, still on the up side. i don't think we've seen the

highs of the year. >> okay. one quick question for you. do you think the leadership remains with the technology stocks and others, or do you think the baton is handed offin sectors pick up and run? >> they will eventually. right now technology stocks have the momentum, i think. >> professor siegel, thank you, as always. >> thank you. coming up, deep fakes and election integrity. neteok at danger posed by a.i. gerad images and other threats. "squawk box" will be right back. and if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea, and now becomes the future. a future where you grew a dream into a reality. it's waiting for you. mere minutes away. the future is nothing but power and it's all yours. the all new godaddy airo. get your business online in minutes

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welcome back to "squawk box," everyone. among our top business stories today, intel will receive $8.5 billion in grants from the chips and science act as the government tries to ramp up domestic semiconductor manufacturing. the company could be in line for up to $11 billion an additional lornes. intel says it will use the funding for fabrication sites and research centers in arizona, ohio, new mexico and oregon. president biden set to announce those awards today in arizona. by the way, in the next hour catch a live interview with pat

elsinger. and saudi arabia in talk to create a $40 billion fund to invest in artificial intelligence. the sources tell cnbc those talks are not finalized. this news first reported by the "new york times." and chipotle's board of directors approving for 5-1 stock split closing just below $2,800. now at $2,950. took off in after-hours up by 5.5% in extended hours trading. >> a lot of money. apparently want to diversify. thought about it? golf. tennis. >> i thought you meant chipotle? >> no. >> give me a second to catch up. golf, tennis. even mnuchin's consortium for tiktok all saudis?

a.i.? >> middle eastern. middle eastern in the fund itself. here with us on cnbc he said -- >> dubai? >> get more than 10% stake and did not mention saudi investors. i think he said supposed to be u.s. investors. >> yep. >> in his fund a hue influence of saudi -- >> nbs definitely a mover and shaker in terms if not the old -- not your grandfather's saudi arabia. >> looking at can't rely on oil profits forever. >> right. got a lot of money, seems like. i mean, do they own a business news channel ? seem would be a, a great asset. you have to keep the current talent. >> offers? >> the current -- keep the current -- what? $300 million? take away from nvidia's a.i. extra

extravaganza. asking what? are we at a peak? nvidia. joining us and first talk about the darker side of a.i. specifically the threat from election year deep fakes. could the deep fakes be any worse than we have already? former facebook chief information officer security officer alex stamos injos us. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley. you know what's brilliant? boring. think about it. boring is the unsung catalyst for bold. what straps bold to a rocket and hurtles it into space?

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among worries for voters this election season, misinformation and a.i.-fueled deep fakes to help prepare for a possible election day problems, nbc news reports that tech executives, civil leaders and former u.s. officials recently participated in a war games-style simulation. a report on the exercise says the results were sobering with one organizer saying it was jarring for participants to see how quickly just a few threats could spiral out of control. joining us to you talk about election year misinformation alex stamos. chief trust officer and a lecturer at stanford university formerly ran online security operations at facebook and

yahoo! have you put together possible scenarios you can scare us with on the type of things that can be done with deepfakes this time around? i was kind of joking about how the real thing on both sides of this -- both candidates, the real thing looks like a deep fake half the time. you can't even believe -- state of the union or an average trump speech almost looks like the other side already like sort of fabricated what either candidate is saying. bad enough without deep fakes. how can it get worse? >> yes. pointing out kind of the obvious use of a deep fake. it would be to create a fake video, fake audio, fake image of one of the presidential candidate doing something that isn't true. i think that's actually the

least worrying option here, and i think one of the things that came out of the simulation that you mentioned in that nbc covered. a bunch of different ways to use deep fakes subtle and harder to push back against. a video of president biden saying something he never said you'd have the entire press corps looking into it fact checking it possibly telling people, oop. this is fake. something distributed point-to-point. only going out to a small number of individuals, going out on group chats in phone calls or individual text messages it's much less likely. exactly what we saw in new hampshire where a deep fake of president biden's voice called up voters and said don't vote in the democratic primary. save your vote for the fall. not just a use of deep fakes actually illegal. against federal law. there has been an investigation and the person responsible has been caught. that's what i'm more worried about. those kind of things. that if you end up communicating to a small number of people and

convince them there's violence at the polls, that they're closed. tell them, if you vote today your vote won't count. that could really affect, maybe not the presidential race, but certainly local races, congressional races, situations in which people are winning by only a couple hundred or a couple thousand votes. harder for the media to push back against. >> i should not touch third rails but i don't know. i touch them a lot. still here, kind of. >> right. >> the third rail i would say here, alex, you described the main stream media making sure that joe biden didn't say something that a deep fake, you know, reportedly reported him to be saying. i think they would. i think they would look for that. the other day we saw a prime example of mainstream media totally onboard with promulgating a smalls narrative what trump was saying with the bloodbath in the auto industry. you can't count on mainstream

media to treat both sites equally. what does it mat fer there's a deep fake? they don't treat real news objectively for the two different candidates. >> you know, i think you sort of work for nbc universal. you got your chance right here to treat both candidate fairly. from my perspective i try to keep politics out of it. >> thank god i'm here, alex. i feel a little lonely. >> well, i think you've got neighbors there who perhaps fill airwaves on one side as well. from my perspective the real danger is around the actual mechanism of the election. we've had candidates in the media saying bad things about other candidates all the time. that is a long history in american history, but what is special now is that you can create something that looks like the president of the united states, or your local secretary of state or a governor. don't go vote.

there's violence at the polls. polls are closed. the other thing i'm really worried about is tying it to actual cyber attacks against election infrastructure. the last couple years politically-motivated attacks against the roots that tried to protect the elections from direct cyber attack. that has been effective in driving a lot of states out of these collaborations and reducing the amount of help the federal government gives local election officials on cyber and our adversaries are not stopping. my colleagues wrote up a report on a new vegs called the acid rain wiper, a piece of malware russians used in the first days of the ukraine invasion to knock out satellite terminals and attack the via set satellite sim in ukraine and across all of europe. a tool that could definitely be used against the systems and supporting elections. maybe not voting machines themselves. fortunately moved away from touch-screen voting in vast majority of states and i believe in all swing states, but there's

all kind of systems necessary to count the vote and provide a quick response so that people trust the output. disinformation is showing one of these candidate saying that it's rigged or trying to get its people not to vote combined with a attack doesn't change the outcome but you don't know a couple weeks everything is hand-voted's that can be incredibly destructive. >> a warning came out yesterday, alex, from the administration i think saying be careful and watch out with the water supply, water companies need to watch out for this? >> yeah. >> how -- you know about these cyber attacks. how big of a deal is that? because stealing an election is one thing. not knowing if you can drink the water coming out of your tap is another. >> exactly what i was thinking. >> not to downplay elections but how big of a problem is this? >> a huge issue. we see it from a number of american adversaries. a classic russian thing. russian gru spent years building

malware specifically targets infrastructure. acid rain is one example. a tool called black energy. a tool used against ukraine a couple different times to knock power out. the ukrainians have gotten very good at defending themselves because they've been fighting this since 2014. us in america, we have had kind of blackout after blackout due to russian attacks and i don't think we'll do as well in that kind of attack. the other problem, chinese now in this. last year a number of companies including ourselves have written about finding chinese back doors planted in infrastructure systems that look like they would support an american response in the pick. like guam, pearl harbor, san diego. places that something happened in taiwan american ships would move, marines going into ports on rail. moving a massive amount of equipment to the west coast

delivering to the pacific and looks like chinese have built systems and back doors specifically to try to disrupt that capability. yes, a risk here both on the russian side, because russia is loot losing the war in ukraine. best option for winning, try to get america off of ukraine's side. which they can try to do creating political divisions and then people's republic of china, clearly looking towards disrupting america's ability to fight a war in the pick. between those two adversaries i am worried about water, power, other critical infrastructure systems not getting the attention needed. >> alex, it's international happiness day! good god! >> gosh. >> happy to say, i -- >> everybody party needs a pooper. that's why we invited you today. >> anytime, joe. let me know. >> okay. if you can't have -- got to be vodka then if you can't drink the water.

how do you stay hydrated? >> bottled water. >> there you go. or boil it. alex, thank you. when we come back, amazon make as new play for spring shopper, but will that siphon off sales from second quarter results? we'll get that story next. we'll be right back. they're waiting for you. hey, do you have a second? they're all expecting more. more efficiency. more benefits. more growth. when you realize you can give your people everything, and more. thank you very much. [applause] ask, "now what?" here's what. you go with prudential to protect, empower and grow. with everything you need to deliver, you guessed it... more. one more thing... who's your rock? learn more at prudential.com

amazon looking to shake up the spring sale season for retailers. we have more with the company's new tactic. >> good morning. a few things to note about amazon's strategy. unlike prime day discounts these open for recruiting nor subscribers in the prime ecosystem. 139 dollar per year membership free today shipping and streaming.

flywheel effect sometimes called for amazon decommerce business, been a driver of customer loyalty and prime members do tend to spend more. bank of america sees potential for $1 billion to $2 billion in gmv or gross merchandise volume as a result of this spring event starts today. modest. estimated $500 billion last year. amazon targeting fewer product categories. specifically mentioning warmer weather. thinking of things like outdoor furniture and say this might be a competitive move ahead of wayfair's upcoming spring sale. something similar planned and fending off newer entrants like teemu. end of the quarter for amazon. could be boost in sales. strategic. a potential concern, it is late in the quarter. worrying amazon could borrow from second-quarter sales and discounts potential to weigh on

margins. guys? >> i guess, kate, kind of experimenting with things that tradition retailers have been doing for forever. right? offer sales, bring more people in. do you get more loyal customers? can you increase the flywheel effect? or does it just drop right to the bottom line? i would look at this as an experiment. see what happened. right? >> yeah. i think you're right. already have major sales day. first day amazon is doing this. see if it becomes an annual event. you see it happening for traditional retailers, too. a slow sales cycle. isn't necessarily the case ahead of summer, but right that it is sort of a test here. could turn into one of those annual sales days but compromising the pricing. got to think about margins as well and how this plays into how much they're actually taking away end of the quarter. see how it does. interesting to dig through this in any sort of effect on quarterly results. >> thank you. coming up, we're going to hear from the ceo of redfin on

what that landmark settlement by the national association of realtors means for the big business of buying and slielng houses. "squawk box" will be right back. are you keeping as much of your investment gains as possible? high taxes can erode returns quickly. at creative planning, your portfolio is managed in a tax-efficient manner. it's what you keep that really matters. book your free meeting today at creativeplanning.com.

big news in real estate that legal settlement of the national association of realtors we talked about is approved by a federal court. the deal could change the fee

structure for real estate commissions, and put money back in the pocket of home sellers. talking more about that diana olick joins us with a special guest. >> joe, good morning. and glen kellman, ceo of redfin. had you on friday when it first came out you reacted to it and now changing how you're doing your business model. tell us what you're doing in reaction to this? >> getting more aggressive about selling homes directly to consumers. so many called us over the weekend after news of the settlement broke saying i don't want to pay a buyers' agent. i want to hire you to sell homes directly to home buyers. software tools to do that, get to work. the message this weekend. >> anecdotes you're hearing from consumers? confusion about buyers agents, seller agents, who pays who? had to do a lot of explaining or simply just answering their questions? >> mostly people have been asking if commissions have come

down. still have to pay a buyer agent when i list my home. figuring out if the industry will really change and anyone in the industry had the same experience. my phone blowing up. text messages, emails. everyone want to know, is this for real? >> what about buyers' agents? argument to be made for first-time buyers, perhaps people lower income who might not know about what kind of deals, how they're made, how negotiations are done, how escalation clauses are done, isn't a buyer's agent helpful for a lot of people? >> absolutely. we think people ought to have the choice. we are buyers' agents, too, and know people need guidance, what they can afford, how inspection con tengaries works, tour listing offered by brokers. only way to do that through a buyer's agent. obviously many people are going to need that support. they shouldn't have to hire someone. they should do it because they want to. when they do that they should have a voice how much that agent gets paid.

that's the premise of -- this reform in the industry. >> now, is it your opinion as some headlines screaming this is going to slash commissions entirely? that the people who work for redfin, your colleagues, will lose millions of dollars? >> redfin saved consumers $ 1.6 billion in fees. we saw a higher affinity for redfin. people asking about listing their home, we representing them they know they can get a deal from redfin and feel this news gave them permission. >> redfin has a standard commission unlike the industry, anywhere from 5 to 6%, kind of the generalized commission you could negotiate that but redfin has a different model. right? >> right. we charge a fee as low as 1% to list a home. if we sell it directly to a buyer total commission about 2%. represent a buyer on a listing hosted by another brokerage we

refund part of our commission to that buyer. 18 years trying to change the game, give consumers a better deal. sometimes asy. sometimes it's been hard, but over the weekend it got easier. >> okay. so not just plugging redfin, ceo i know. have you actually been seeing more business because of this restructure over the weekend, people confused how the general market is saying, okay. redfin seems clear? >> yes. listing demand day of the settlement popped 14%. home buyer demand over the weekend popped 5%. that's not year on year. that week on week. an unusual signal for us. >> and seasonal? >> not just seasonal. a little of that. you're too smart. but mostly it's a real pop. it feels like the bell has been rung with consumers and hard to unring that bell. >> looking out across the landscape of other listing you've been watching a settlement fshs approved, doesn't go into effect until the summer, have you seen changes in listings so far?

would buyers' agent coming off of it, that kind of thing? >> many customers asked about it. activating a listing offering commission 2, 2.5 or 3% to buyers agent. called over the weekend say now i want to lower that eliminate that commission. we looked over the weekend at how many listing have been activated across the industry no longer offering a commission to the buyers' agent, that number hadn't changed much. people are still processing the news. >> quickly, mortgage rates up or down? a fed rate? >> about the sail. still inflation pressure out there! >> okay. from redfin, ceo. becky, back to you. >> okay. diana, thank you. when we come back, inside nvidia's latest technology advances. talking about the real world a.i. applications that we could start seeing in the near future. stay tuned. isquk x"ndching "sawbo a of

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welcome back to "squawk box." the futures this morning, still a mixed picture. dow indicated off 65 points. s&p down by 5. you have the nasdaq picked up steam this morning. indicated up by about 15 minutes. see what happens as we hear from

jay powell and company. nvidia wowing the tech world this week with its latest generation of a.i. chips and software. the company's ceo, jensen wang spoke with jim cramer on "mad money." >> reinvented the computer as we know it'sthe same since 1964. since the year after i was born. we've re-invented it with an idea call called accelerated computing. now you can have a computer 100 times faster, or 20 times for energy efficient. costs 20 times less and to be able to do, solve problems a the a scale nobody's ever imagined. >> joining us now to talk about the technical and societal impacts of the latest generation of a.i. chips, stephen levy, editor at-large at wired. do you ascribe anything to the science fiction we've all read over the years about, as we get

closer and closer to this moment of a sentient computer? is it relevant to talk about those issues, or is it too pie in the sky? are we getting close? >> in this two-hour keynote, and nvidia's ceo really didn't touch on sentients. i think we're a little away from that. he didn't shy away from big ideas. i think it really is up for grabs where we're going to land with a.i. right now the a.i. we have, generative a.i., is startling beyond most even scientists thought would happen in, five years ago. wouldn't have predicted we'd be this far along. sentients is really a step beyond what anyone can get their arms around now. i wouldn't expect computers coming to life anytime soon. >> why it's call ed singularity

>> sasha nadella called it the last invention if it happens. in contracts, if it happens, renegotiate. who knows what that means if that happens? >> i was talking about that. maybe artificial general intelligence is not the same as sentients and i think wang differentiated it. emergence of agi within five years. give it another -- steven, give it another 20 years after the next 5, i think you're at sentients. and then i do think we need to start -- the human brain, do we know the difference between a sociopath and a normal person at this point? do we know -- >> i know it when i see it. >> getting into a squishy ground here. we don't know inside anyone's

brain. so if we -- if the computers get smart enough in terms of performance, it becomes moot whether they're actually sentient or not or behaving that way. sentients really is -- >> i don't want them to pugll m plug, steven and get rid of carbon-based or hydro-based humans because we're superfluous. i starteded this interview abou science fiction. plenty to learn about a.i. but out in existential and 100 years could be if we don't know what we're doing. >> it's up to us to determine what degree of control humans will have in the systems that operate modern society. turns out to be very convenient as computers get smarter and smarter to turn over those things to computers, because our

systems are so complex that no humans can easily grasp them. that's what the danger comes. not necessarily a sentient computer making a decision to take things over but a computer fulfilling missions we might give it, might determine fulfilling that mission might not be the best thing for humans and the way it does it. >> we can do that already. i mean, just go watch the movie "oppenheimer." we can create systems a human employs it, it's devastating. so near-term, steven, not -- okay. not going to worry, then. near term. >> not today. >> not today. what should i worry about near term? >> well, i think the nvidia case is something. i think a lot of people are quietly concerned about in the s industry that this one company, large part because it's done so well building these chips at the right time has so much power to determine winners and loser and build itself up.

it's gone from sort of the second tier in the tech industry to way up top, you know, in the clouds, but the top tier. you know, multi-trillion dollars. so i think -- right now, the question is whether we're viewing peak nvidia, because right now they look at the apex of apex of their power, they're expanding their lead, whether people are going to be determined to catch up to replace it with, you know, or present a competitor that can do the same with similar chips. right now, there's no competitor that could even match them. >> on international happiness day, can you tell me when we're going to have a.i. designing rational drugs and curing cancer and consolidating all our medical records so we know exactly what the prognosis is and what kind of treatment we need? i mean, there are amazing things that are potentially near term. can you give me some of those? >> absolutely. i think that's going to happen

soon. just a few years ago, even before generative a.i. exploded, google deep mind came up with a way to solve the problem of protein folding, which was something that was a very difficult, intractable challenge that scientists couldn't do easily, and i think we're going see the same kind of advances with now generative a.i. and chips like nvidia's. there's already giant partnership with novo nordisk. >> someone just wrote in, steven, that bones, not the caddy, but the doctor on "star trek" was very, very worried about a.i. back in the 1960s. so, this -- this is not new. i can't believe we've lived to see it where we have to worry about it. >> well, close the pod doors, dave, you know? hal -- >> that was a segue, steven,

because shatner's birthday, my idol of all time. he may be zip lining in the amazon or something, but he'll be 93 on friday, and i think it's his birthday, and i think he needs -- trying to get him to come on the show. but he's a specimen. do you think he found something out about life and everything out there somewhere? how does he do it at 93? do you know? >> he broke out in tears after his short trip into space. >> he did. >> you know, i remember that, and i think it's amazing. i'll bet he never thought that he would see life approach "star trek" the way it has in the last few years. >> i never thought i'd hear him sing "lucy in the sky with diamonds," but he did. steven, thank you for playing along. we're both in media, right? we're allowed to do this type of thing. good to have you on, and happy birthday to bill, who has a

movie coming out. i think it's called "call me bill," something like that. shatner. >> oh, shatner. i still think william. >> yeah, william. quick programming note. you can catch more of jim cramer -- >> you say bill, and i think bou bill murray. >> you can catch more -- there's two bills in our life, bill shatner and bill clinton, of course. the interview with nvidia ceo jensen huang tonight on "mad money." >> bill does that. coming up, we're going to talk markets and get you ready for the opening bell on wall street. first, as we head to break, check out the shares of boeing. the company's cfo updating analysts on free cash flow guidance for the first quarter. it's projected to be in the range of minus 4 to $4.5 billion. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. with grit. british announcer: rose is really struggling. it's something you build over time.

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just a little more than half an hour to go before the opening bell on wall street. investors are looking ahead to this afternoon's fed decision and probably more importantly, the meeting that comes after that. want to bring in carrie firestone, executive chairman and cofounder of arias asset management. what are you expecting from the fed? what might happen in the markets? >> well, the fed is unlikely to do anything today, we believe, and becky, nice to see you.

we have had a reasonable year already. the s&p is up over 8%. tech, of course, has led the market, expects there to be cuts this year, so we need the fed to sound as if they're going to do something about that. it doesn't have to be at this meeting. >> let's talk a little bit. we've talked so much about the fed today. i'd like to talk about an article, a column that you had up on cnbc pro that's for nvidia, whether or not that stock can continue the parabolic gains. you took a look back at history. what did it tell you? >> yeah, so, we looked at 20 years of s&p 500 history. we looked at all stocks that had gone up 200% or more in any one year to see what happened to the stock in the following year, because anyone who is buying nvidia now must understand that it's up 80% so far this year. it's up 2,000% over the last five years, you know, 250% over the last two.

you pick your time frame. big numbers. so, what does it take for it to go up again? the numbers were interesting. about half of the names went up, and half the names went down in the next year, in the following year, to that 200%-plus. and 43% outperformed the market. the ones that did had the biggest earnings growth, average of over 80%. so, that means, nvidia, if it's going to be on average, would have to grow its earnings 80% this year. we know or we expect that the numbers will be up 100%. it's supposed to grow from $12 to about $24 in this fiscal year. but does the market believe that already? is that in the stock? does nvidia need to grow its earnings more than 100%? and that's really what we think the market should be focusing on, how much can those earnings grow in the next 12 months to maintain the stock to outperform the market?

of course, it could go down 30% from here, and ifthe market is flat, nvidia would still outperform because it's up so much versus the 8% of the s&p. >> you sound a little skeptical. we're almost out of time, but am i right to interpret it that way? >> well, i think you have to question whenever a stock has this kind of surge, and option buying is so much of it, it's not that it isn't a great company. we think it's fantastic technology, but these kind of moves have to end at some point. >> all right, carrie, great to see you as always, and thanks for floating that article to me. it was a good read. i appreciate it. let's take a final check on the markets, folks. we are looking at a mixed market ahead of this big fed day. dow futures are down by 76 points. s&p futures, off by five. the nasdaq, indicated up by about 22 points. the treasury market's been interesting too. yields have picked up steadily, although today and yesterday, giving back some of that ground. the ten-year is at 4.28%.

the two-year is at 4.68%, and before that, the ten-year had been above 4.3%. >> get a worm song in your head. ♪ don't worry, be happy ♪ it's international happiness day. ♪ you want happy for the rest of your life ♪ >> i don't like any of these, but i'm happy. >> i am too. we hope you're happy and see you back here tomorrow. right now, it's time for "squawk on the street." good wednesday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm david faber live from post nine at the new york stock exchange. there he is, jim cramer still in san jose at nvidia's a.i. developers conference. we'll have highlights from -- are you still doing the interview? has it ended? i'm not even sure. that long interview -- >> it never ends. >> -- with jensen huang from nvidia. let's give you a look at futures, of course. as we get ready for what jim and i like to call hump day. i call that a mixe