disappointing numbers we were waiting for. i'm going to speak to longtime backer for tesla, cathie wood. it's wednesday, april 3rd, 2024. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning and welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc live from times square. i'm joe kernen. andrew, becky is on a boat. there's so much rain back here. i'm not necessarily sure it's an ark. it's been raining for 40 days and 40 nights. 's not over yet. i hear in south carolina they have great weather most of the time.

what do you have coming up, and how's the weather? >> so far, so good on the weather. actually last time we were doing it outside on the island. today we're doing it inside on the off chance the weather does worse than it has been. we're at the annual sports complex conference going on. we have a huge lineup of guests throughout the broadcast. bruins ceo george pine is going to be with us and arc's cathie wood. we can have a debate about bitcoin with her. so much going on in her world. then we'll have a conversation with ceo ted leonsis who we've been talking about because he's been involved in that deal in washington, back and forth. and at 8:15, an exclusive

interview, first time ever on cbc, steve cohen, now, of course, the mets owner, but maybe better known to those on wall street as the chairman and ceo of point 72. so many folks in the sports world. we have many of the commissioners from all over the league. i think we have michael rubin, a-rod, i saw last night. corbin is trying to buy the timberwolves. you really can't walk around this place without seeing somebody who's in the middle of one of the big major sports deals right now. we're going to be talking about all of that this morning. >> he was probably hoping that the mets would have won a game at this point. >> yep. we're going to talk about that. >> no way. no way. they weren't going to play yesterday. >> they say money can't buy love and money can't always buy winning. >> there's no way they were playing a home game yesterday. there's just no way, and it didn't happen. we'll try again today.

they were supposed to play the tigers yesterday, but that did not happen. 0-4, but it's early. it doesn't matter. yankees are like 5-1 or something. so it's early. that -- are we allowed to talk about where you actually are, andrew, or is it -- >> yeah. but i'm not sure you were right about that. >> it's not sanctuary? >> i don't know. yeah, that's where we are. >> sanctuary? >> that's where we are. i em not at a golfer, so i'm not enjoying this the way you might enjoy it. >> the hotel -- the resort, i think, is sanctuary. it's a great place, beautiful place, golfing -- it's not up to the level of a sea island. i know they try, but they're also going to be not quite -- no, i'm kidding. that was just a little plug. >> a whole bunch of people are going out to play golf this afternoon, and i'll be back on a flight to come back to new york.

by the way, you know who's also here, i should tell you, the biggest mets fan and actually the biggest jets fan. who do you know who's a squawk friend of the show who's here. >> you mean long-suffering. long-suffering fan. >> do you know? >> yeah, i know he's down there. is he coming on the show? >> mohammed al lurie. >> that's what i say about mohammed. he had a choice. yankees or mets. picks the mets. giants or jets. picks the jets. >> those are the working men teamings of new york. that's where it's the heart is. >> if the market's there and you're trying to pick winners. >> i think he comes by it honestly being from queens. >> maybe his track record is better in doing it the other

way. i'm being told to move on, can you believe that? let's get a check of the markets. u.s. futures are lower after two straight triple-digit down days for the dow. 32 points now. nasdaq down about 54. the dow and s&p as we just noted fell for a second straight day, way down by doubts that the fed has inflation under control. who knows now. people are actually saying it out loud. there ma i be no rate cuts this year. nasdaq fell 0.1%, s&p 0.7%. medicare did not help. >> i had more concerns about this on friday than i did based on monday's numbers. friday showed the inflation was running hotter than expected. >> ism. >> yeah, it's ism. that's the best-case scenario.

if the fed's not going to cut rates, it's because there's a stronger economy. that's the part you're happy to say. stronger economy. strong inflation, not so much. >> treasuriesyies and commoditi responding. gold, long dormant, has been hitting new highs for the past, i guess, three or four months really. we talked to katie stockton about a month ago about what we saw in gold and that it had broken up. it was one of those instances in which she said she doesn't know what resistance is because the's never been here before. gold up $11, closing in on 2,300. there are inflation concernsle we're going to talk to flan fed president raphael bostic in an excludive interview at 8:30 a.m. eastern. in the meantime reuters

notes disney is set to win the proxy fight. enough votes had been cast to put disney's board of directors safely ahead of the two challengers. reuters did caution there's always a poblts some shareholders may change their vote. they're allows to do that up through today. van guards is backing disney's slate of nominees. vanguard is the largest investor in disney with an 8.3% stake, with the stock down. andrew, do you got a point on this? >> i was going to say, i don't know if you saw this, becky, but, you know, bill ackman tweeted out last night about this report, i believe. i thought it was fascinating. he said, there's been several of these reporting saying disney is winning this proxy contest with nelson peltz. he said he doesn't have an in vestment in disney but thought it was important to point out what is an inappropriateness to

the leaks to the press. he said, my understanding is it is illegal to release the outcome of the vote prior to being finalized as it has an effect of manipulating the outcome. here the company and its ad advisers or somebody has leaked disney is winning the contest. it's inappropriate and should. have been done so. i don't know who the sources are. it's very rare where we see a proxy contest in recent years as i recall where you had reports prior to the outcome of who's going to win. >> yeah. you know, with half the -- with about half the votes in, disney's doing -- that was really -- it was weird. it's only half. >> there's a lots of things that are weird about this proxy fight. normally companies don't get into the fray. they kind of play like they're above what the activists are doing. this has been the case where the company has taken activist

tactics and turned it back on the activist, which tells you a couple of things, which is, either they were concerned they were going to lose, or this is a situation where bob iger said i can't possibly stand the thought of dealing with nelson peltz. i didn't come back on the board to deal with that. but this has been a proxy battle in many, many ways. all right. intel shares are lower this morning. the foundry business recorded an operating loss of $7 billion in 2023 on sales of $18.9 billion. it's the first time they've disclosed revenue totals for its foundry business alone. it's a step toward ceo pat gelsinger's plan to continue making its own processoring but to serve as a manufacturer. intel says it expects the foundry's losses to peak this year and eventually break even

midway between this quarter and the end of 2030. meantime shares of paramount global, they're rising on new reports that the company is moving closer to a sale. paramount is considering exclusive talks with sundance, the media entertainment company, david ellison. they're seeking to sell all instead of parts of the company. stock is down 20% this your and more than 40% o every the past 12 months. there have been discussions about apollo commenting about buying the studio separately, but that does not appear to be on the table at least right now, becky. >> thanks, andrew. when we come back, tesla shares taking a hit yesterday after disappointing first quarter delivery numbers. we've got the details right after the break. and in the next hour, we'll get reaction from ark invest cathie wood. "squawk box" will be right back.

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plus, save even more and get an eligible 5g phone on us! visit xfinitymobile.com today. . tesla shares yesterday dropping. this after they disappointed the street. it's the first decline since the year 2020.

joining us to talk about tesla and declining, we bring in sylvia. what do you think? it's the first time we've seen that since 2020. >> i think this is the first time where they have a whole lot of headwinds facing them. there are fewer people interested in buying these cars with rates as high as they are, and the company itself has had issues. they've had a fire, lawsuits, a stain to their brand, i think, at this point, and just in general just the possible larry of evs has slowed down in the near term. as a shareholder, you may not be thrilled with where the price is going. >> byd, is that a threat in the market? it's a threat they're going to face in china, but is it a threat they're going to face here? >> i don't think it's going to be a threat here for a long

time, but china is important. i think they're going to lose some of their presence there because of byd. but i think if we take a step back in terms of tesla, where the future might be bright for them might be in the ai world, the self-driving vehicles, the robo taxis if they ever accomplish that, they could generate tesla streams. and tesla has cash. they've been able to cut the prices of cars, better their margins, and improve things like this. if you stick around for the long term and believe electric vehicles will grow, tesla will win in this space. >> that's kind of interesting. that's the theme for the entire market. does ai overwhelm or can it outshine some of the concerns people have if the fed's not going to cut rates? >> i think that there are going to be ai winners that are going to do a whole lot of other things and will continue to benefits from that, whether or not there's kind of churn in

that theme. companies like apple and tesla who are consumer driven may suffer from that. i think ai is largely the largest tech innovation opportunity we have as investors for the next five to ten years without a doubt. >> we're talking about concerns in the market, a potential for a pullback. but we're still at 1%. >> i think the panic is overdone. i think it's sometimes their own worst enemies. sometimes the market falls back a little bit and it's sell, sell, sell, driving up, and we're buying too high. these are times where it takes discipline. the economy is strong, the data that's coming out tells us we're in the soft landing. what will destructit. it's hard to see in the near term. it's like stay the course. we have kept saying that for the last year or so. >> would you consider this a pullback? >> not really. but if i have fomo on a couple of stocks, not major pullbacks,

i like to get in at lower prices, and i've seen that at 900 plus. you've got to buy something, right? >> at least a pullback of 5 to 10%. >> we're not talking about that. i think, again, there's so much opportunity and so much big themes in ai that everybody wants to buy those stocks. if you look at the etfs and single stocks and you buy a couple percentage points back, it's better than buying at the all-time highs. i think dollar cost averaging is the way to go with some of these themes. to your point, i don't think it's a pullback. the market ran up pretty quickly since november. rates are up, oil's spike a little bit. we have to ride this out. >> areas outside of ai that you're watching at this point? >> yeah, i'm pretty tech-happy, let's call it, so i think the next ai for me is quantum computing. i'm starting to look at those stocks, whether it's righetti or

others. even companies like ibm investing in that space there, you're starting to see some kbrouc, whether it's from the u u.s. government or china. i think the chect that gdp moment is going to come. i like quantum health care drugs. that's taking off. and the baby boom era is surging. >> do you worry that any of those stocks are at risk? they've had huge demand for the weight loss drugs, but there's also a big political push to bring prices down for those drugs. you hear it from areas in the senate, bernie sanders calling for it in the last week or so. you've also got medicare and medicate saying we may not pay for some of these things or the government saying we may want to renegotiate given the losses

we've experienced with some of these. >> that's a fair point. but even if they have to cut costs, they oar going to generate enormous rates of revenue provided no one gets sick. >> like they're the next fen-phen. >> exactly. orr on the other hand they have other drugs. ai is starting to help these companies develop new drugs. >> thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. coming up live from south carolina, we're going to talk about tesla with ark invest cathie wood who's going to be sitting across from me. we'll talk with george pine and ted leonsis who owns the washington caps and wizards and has been in a big back-and-forth

with washington and virginia about which way he's going to go. it looks like he's going to stay in washington. plus, a rare and exclusive interview. met owner and chairman and ceo and veteran of wall street, steve cohen on sports, markets, and so much more. "squawk box" coming back right after this. covid-19? i'm not waiting. if it's covid, paxlovid. paxlovid is an oral treatment for adults with mild-to-moderate covid-19 and a high-risk factor for it becoming severe. it does not prevent covid-19. my symptoms are mild now, but i'm not risking it. if it's covid, paxlovid. paxlovid must be taken within the first five days of symptoms, and helps stop the virus from multiplying in your body. taking paxlovid with certain medicines can lead to serious or life-threatening side effects

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hack on top u.s. government officials' emails last year. in a new report by the board it called the breach of officials at the state and commerce departments preventable, citing the company for lapses and a deliberate lack of traipse parency. the board is looking at making security reforms across all of its products. microsoft shares up by about 15 cents. meantime, becky, i want to make a quick clarification if i could about a story we told you about yesterday. steven miron and steven newhouse resigned from the warner brother's board amid an antitrust violation. they served on both the boards of warner bros. and charter communications, but our report yesterday mads it seem like steven newhouse served on both boards. but, in fact, his brother

michael serves on the board and the probe considers whether their investment company vance had representation on both boards. and it's a big issue on an antitrust perspective on whether you can have board members on cross-boards, companies that deal with each other. wa warner bros. discovery, we shoulds mention, slightly down to date. we should also mention next monday is it's the first time warner brothers can tech incomely be sold without the tax issues i had since it was spun off from at&t. so in dealmaker land, next monday is perhaps the biggest d day. we'll see whether warner brothers trades and from a dj perspective whether its can trade insofar there are a lot of questions whether another company could ever merge with it. >> i like it.

it's down slightly week to date. week to date, it's only down slightly. it's an $8 stock. it's tough for a media company. that's like, you know, game stop is down slightly week to date. since when are we doing week to date? i don't know. >> there are concerns about the doj. coming up, we're going to talk about disney's proxy battle with nelson peltz's trian ahead of the shareholders meeting. as we heds to break, we look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers. [thunder rumbles] ♪ ♪

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good morning, everybody.

we're live on "squawk box" from times square. not seeing significant declines, but we did see the markets lower. right now you're going to see the dow futures off by 30 points, the s&p off by 10, and the nasdaq off by 54. >> nelson peltz with half the shares. and others are supporting disney in the annual meeting where final votes will be cast. it's happening today. joining us now is value edge adviser's chair who used to be with iss and no longer iss president nell. you have a hard time understanding why. you supported activists in the past. >> i do have a hard time

understanding it. remember that iss is supporting only one of peltz's three nominees, so they're really hedging their bet as little bit there. iss has a tendency to support minority slates, so the idea of just putting one person to the board to shake things up a little bit is something they're very susceptible to and i think it's a big mistake. iger's record is better than peltz's. i've been an activist. and peltz violated activist rule 101, which is you've got to pick a company that's significantly unperforming in its share group. i don't think you see that at disney.

>> if you had to summarize, you would say that nelson peltz is complaining a lot, but not really -- hasn't really proposed anything that would help the fortunes of disney in any meaningful way, but if he has, he hasn't stated what he would do. >> you're exactly right. he's acting more like a politician -- sorry, politician abouts -- than a businessperson. he's making a lot of general statements. we all like to taipei to performance, but he's not saying exactly what performance that is. and other than succession planning which, lets face it, disney bungled one time and had to bring in their former ceo. let's hope they don't bupgle it this time, he has not been specific enough. when he has been, he said the

single dumbest thing he possibly could have said. he complained of having too many minority women in the movies. first of all, that means he doesn't understand the revenue. the parks are much more in terms of operating income thajd movies are. second, he double understand that people who buy stock -- as you know, disney's got a lot more individual investors than most companies. believe me, ron desantis is not buying disney stock. they buy the stock because they like the movies. by the way, "black panther" became the biggest grows year. disney appears to be understanding the movie business better than nelson peltz. >> the examples you bring up might not be problematic. i really like the original "snow white." i guess i can't say -- the return of seven magical full-size creatures, you've got

to admit, that ruined it for me. have you? >> we haven't seen it yet, so we don't know. but disney is doing very well. >> idon't know what they're going to do with "lord of the rings," and if they don't have actually elves playing the elves, it's cultural misappropriation there. we've got to find a lot of elves because there's actual armies. >> i'll tell you what i'm hoping for from the meeting. i hope they release the new "deadpool" trailer. it's going to be amazing. >> more superhero stuff. >> i'm a fan too. >> we talked with andrew earlier. is it normal for companies to say, you know, we've got some normal returns here and we're winning. i've heard it nonstop that we're halfway through. >> actually the company doesn't say that. they have other people who say that. >> they're the ones who know. >> but they do have other people

who monitor it. >> they leak it to somebody else, whatever. >> there are proxy services firms that -- >> let me tell you something. in a proxy fight, it's anything goes. >> not like a political -- >> no. the votes are in and the proxy solicitors know it. and they have been all over it. they hire people who do that. i have voted my shares. they know how i voted. maybe they don't know it's me. but i voted my shares in favor on the disney board and against some of the idiotic share propose alleges that are on the lifts as well. >> andrew. >> what are the rules about disclosure of that prior too the election? in the same way that we've always had questions about a political campaign and whether you can influence the outcome by telling folks where things are going before the votes are --

before the booths are closed, right? news organizations deal with this on an election day every year. how is it supposed to work in this world? >> as i said, it often works with them disclosing ahead of time. in fact, i'm old enough to remember when votes wither not private and they knew who voted how, and theywould put a lot of pressure on people. you have to remember that when they disclosed that, we can still challenge our votes until midnight last night. when they're disclosing that, that everybody gs people a chance to change their votes, and i believe that's fine. >> all right. we'll talk about a couple of other things. one thing i thought you pointed out was interesting was -- i mean, disney shares were $200. i would be unhappy, but you said relative to its peers because media has just been, oh, my god, i was going to say bloodbath, but i'm afraid to say bloodbath. media shares have been

undergoing a lot of pressure at this point, so disney probably is even -- has faired better than the average media company? is that your point? >> i've heard there was a strike last year. that was pretty bad. and before that, we had a pandemic. also to be honest, media companies, particularly netflix and amazon were overspending for a while. it was just an avalanche of money going in all directions. there's been some constriction. disney unlike net flirks has got a lot of other things it's doing. as i points out, the parks which i visited earlier seem to be doing just fine. a larger source of operating revenue than the movies. >> all right. we're going to ejds it there now. i just want to be clear, i was not trying to instill an insurrection or anything by saying that word. i've used that word before. i never knew it was such a -- do you think streaming is ever

going to work, nell? who's got it right? netflix? that's about it. >> netflix is doing very well in their acquisitions as well as things that they initiate, but, yes, you know why streaming will do well? people don't like to buy movie tickets. they like to watch movies at home, and there are a lot of us. >> but you like movie theatre popcorn, do you? >> listen, ipersonally go to the movies all the time. >> i do too. >> but i'm an outlier. people our ainge usually do prefer to watch them at home and they come home, as you know, within six or eight weeks, so -- >> it's a shorter distribution window. >> you sound really negative. the demise of the big theater chain is greatly exaggerated. i don't want those to go away now. don't do that to me. >> i love the recliner seats and the popcorn. ours has got cheetoes popcorn,

my god. where else would you go. >> there are places that have six or search types of flavored popcorn too. who doesn't love database what's the cheese -- they haven't wrapped me yet. i'm going to keep going. they have a cheese on the nachos. is that a natural substance, or do you know? is it an acrylic? >> i try not to think about it too hard, which is the right mood for the movies. >> nell, thanks. it was a pleasure having you on this morning. see you later. >> bye-bye. when we come back, iowa hoops star caitlin clark setting a new record, this time a ratings record. we've got the details straight ahead. and later, don't miss an exclusive interview with atlanta fed president raphael bostic. at coming up at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. "squawk box" will be right back. , we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right?

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late last night taiwan was

rocked by its strongest quake in 25 years. it registered a magnitude of o 7.4. according to the geological survey, it was 7.2. according to taiwan, it was an incredibly severe quake. buildings collapsing. it prompted sun advisories in japan and the philippines. officials in taiwan say at least search people have died. you can see the number ratcheting up. i see nine people. overnight a spokesperson for the tsm said all were alive and they shut down the system. you can wonder if there will eventually cause problems with high-end chips because 80% to 90% of the high-end chips are manufactured on the island. there are still 50 people missing, an we'll continue to watch what's happening here. an true?

>> thanks, becky. coming up live, we're going to talk sports with george pine at the annual sports leadership conference. and in the 7:00 hour, ark investor kathy woods is here to talk about tesla, crypto, and so much more. and washington caps and wizards owner ted leonsis is with us amidst the big battle over washington and virginia and his big teams. and in a rare exclusive for the first time ever, the mets owner and, of course, wall street veteran, point 72 chairman and ceo steve cohen. we'll come back with all of that in just a moment.

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all right. welcome back, everybody. another record for iowa basketball player caitlin clark. monday night's game through 12.3 million viewers on espn, according to nielsen. that makes it not just the most watched women's college basketball game in history, but tops four of the last five games in last year's nba finals and outdrew last year's baseball's world series. anyone who says this is different, sit up and pay attention. it's grabbing the nation's attention. bettors were making wagers. the two women's basketball games were the most bet on events monday night topping every major league baseball game and the nba game. let's get back out to andrew for

much more on the business of sports right now. >> thanks, becky. we're live this morning for the third annual sports leadership conference sponsored by bruins capital and sportico. joining us is the host, george pyne.host, george pine, you've been doing this with jay pensky for a couple of years. great to see you. >> president obama tonight and prime minister of new zealand and finland last night. >> i was saying before, you have virtually all the commissioners here this year, so many sports owners, a number of them joining us a little bit later. it is quite something, plus, cathie wood and mohamed el-erian. >> we have all kinds of people. brian moynihan, everybody. >> michael rubin in a little bit. before we even get going, you were talking about caitlin, she's also making $3 million. which, by the way, is, i think

the third or fourth highest number of any -- of any college athlete. >> she's a phenom, right, beyond an athlete. she's an iconic figure today in america. she's earned it, right? 41 points, 12 rebounds, assists. she's driving a lot of interest and good for her. >> what do you think it means longer term for the value of female sports? >> i think female sports have real traction. you take a step back, globally, you know, soccer is on fire. both in the united states from a women's standpoint, internationally, you see college basketball, even women's volleyball, i'm surprised the traction that the women's pro hockey league has. it is a tailwind in women's sports that hasn't been there before and it is great to see. >> what do you think -- i talk about valuations of teams. we talk about the media ecosphere, which powers the teams. we're talking to ted leonsis, power of the team being in d.c. has a big impact, a-rod is here,

with the valuation of the timberwolves, in that fight. what do you see happening here? had such a rise. >> had a huge rise. you have a scarcity of asset. you have real tax dollars that people don't talk about the tax benefits, and driven by media values which are predictable. you think about the nfl franchise now, they're locked in to billions of revenues for ten years. and most of the leagues are locked in for long-term value. so for the long-term standpoint, pretty stable. what happens when the linear continues to adjust, we'll see how that turns out. for the short run, it is very strong. >> you're in the private equity business. you don't own teams themselves. i'm curious about what seems to be a major shift in sports, which is a private equity sovereign wealth fund pension funds are about to get into professional sports in a big way. >> they are in it in a big way. sports as an asset class is exploding. you see transactions.

motor gp just sold for $4 billion to liberty media. sports as an asset class, look at what the saudis are doing in golf, it is being transformed and private equity will follow as well as other investors. >> in terms of valuations of major league baseball, football, basketball, does it need to have pension funds and sovereign wealth funds in part because there is an upper limit on the wealthy families in america that can buy nfl teams, for example. >> right. and there is a balance on the team side of it, because you take cases of the nfl, how much higher do you want the values to go, how much more gasoline do you want behind those values because there are limits how many people can own that as well. when you own a minority interest in an nfl team, you don't have any rights. that's challenging, as you push the values up, the air gets thinner. there is high value, there is only a few of them an the scarcity of asset just drive --

>> jimmy patero is here who runs espn and disney which owns espn is in the midst of this battle with nelson peltz today. what do you think about the long-term value of an espn? >> first of all, it is well run. they have a great management team. but, you know, they have gone from 100 million homes to 70 million homes to 50 million homes, they're challenged on the pricing, right, when they're at 100 million homes, take three or four other networks as part of the pricing, lose your pricing power, you lose unit sales, and then your reward is i'm b to b to c and now i go to a whole new business b to c with thinner margin. whoever you put in the chair there, that's a challenging dynamic. they're a market leader, but that market is changing. >> you're also in the production business. you produce full swing and own the company that actually makes full swing with tiger woods. you're in business with him as well. >> that's true. >> which is the better business? >> they're both great businesses and great management teams. we enjoyed both of them in different ways. i had a lot of fun with full

swing, the simulation, the technology company. we have a great simulation game that goes into homes and bars and restaurants and actually great ball tracer. and also they do the technology behind the new tiger woods golf league, the tgl, that comes out next year. >> where are you on sports gambling? >> sports gambling -- >> you own fair play. >> we do. 19 times more likely to watch a game if you bet on a game. i think it connects the -- to the hard core fans, another connection point for the leagues. >> who is going to be the winner of that? two or three winners? talking about draft kings, talking about just so many. where is mgm in all of this? >> there are a lot of people, probably can consolidate down and still in the early days. still only have 30 states that have legalized gambling. 20 states to go. i think let's see where we are in five or seven years from now. >> i'm going to talk to ted about this later, you say that being a sports owner, you get a

tax break, right? that's a benefit to all of this. >> 100%. >> there is a big debate that happened in washington, d.c. about giving tax breaks to owners. how do you think that is going to shift over the next couple of years because all of the big stadiums that were built in, you know, 20, 30 years ago, all those leases are coming up and so there is going to be big fights in cities across america about whether they're going to give tax breaks effectively to the folks who own these teams. >> just have kansas city had a -- >> same thing. >> a tough result there. time will tell. these franchises are important to local communities. they drive a lot of value for the local communities and that will be up to the value proposition that the teams provide the communities. >> george, thank you for having us. we appreciate it. >> thank you for coming. appreciate being here. >> when we come back, a lot more here on "squawk box" from the annual global sports leadership conference in just a moment. cathie wood will be here, we're going to talk to her about everything from tesla to bitcoin to the magnificent seven and more. and later, washington caps and

wizards owner ted leonsis making headlines himself. at 8:15, a first on cnbc interview ever, i should say, an exclusive with point72 chairman and ceo steve cohen and the owner of the mets. "squawk box" coming back in just a moment. i am pleased to announce that together we raised over 25 million for local charities across america. thanks to all our team members who truly get the giving culture, and our heartfelt thanks go out to all of you that showed up for our day of giving. together we always make a difference.

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losses after back to back declines for the dow. we'll talk mark ets, crypto and more with ark invest cathie wood and find out where she's putting her money to work. plus, a report says disney has secured enough votes to defeat trion in the proxy battle.

neither side has declared victory yet. you can change the votes up to the last minute. analyst michael nathanson will join us with his reaction to that report and what it means for the magic kingdom. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin who is in kiawah island in south carolina. andrew, tough -- somebody's got to do it. that's what i finally decided. >> it is a hardship, hardship assignment this morning. >> it is hard work. but you got great people that we're going to talk to down there. the futures right now are indicated down again. could this be -- is it possibly the beginning of some consolidation?

we had a couple of days, monday, tuesday, you don't usually see 240 points and yesterday did we get over -- i thought at one point down 400, 500 at one point. >> 450. >> yeah. and synchronized with yields going up, commodities going up, treasuries almost hit 440. not too far. will we get a 2% pullback in the s&p? not yet. in oil, which is -- we have not really seen it go above 90, the trading range has been the high end has been 85. and gold continues to break out to some recent new highs. i saw $11 at one point today. there is bitcoin, which has not been -- did not participate yesterday. idiots that were writing in yesterday, that was my question, not why is gold up? why is gold up when bitcoin was down significantly yesterday? i understand that $34 trillion

might cause us to print a little money, so, you know, kidneys, i understand how gold works. andrew? >> thanks, joe. we'll talk to somebody who knows a lot about this topic and has a lot of important views on it. i'm in kiawah island at the annual sports global leadership conference hosted by bruin capital and sportico. great guests all morning including washington capitals owner ted leonsis and then in the next hour, the first time he's been on cnbc, hedge fund manager, new york mets owner and chairman and ceo of point 72, steve cohen will be with us. we have a lot of questions for him. right now we're joined by cathie wood who is going to be speaking here a little bit later. great to see you this morning. >> great tosee you, andrew. >> 100 things to talk about including bit woicoin and the distinction of bitcoin and gold and the like. i want to start with tesla.

we have seen the price action in tesla which has fallen on the back of worse than expected numbers. and i'm so curious what you think is happening at tesla right now and whether -- there are some analysts out there that now got embarrassed or starting to believe we're at some big inflection point. >> right. so, i think a couple of things are going on. first, we have been talking about this in the quarterly calls, the consumer is under pressure. even though these economic statistics are coming out, and saying everything is just fine, you listen to these company reports, one by one, most of them do not sound like these economic statistics are suggesting. and i think tesla has been telegraphing the high rates, cutting prices to offset them, and they have continued to cut prices. so i think there is economic weakness. there has been a bit of a backlash, i would say, and a pause. because you do have gm and ford saying, wait a minute, we're

going to take a pause here ourselves because we can't do this profitably. by the way, that's a positive for tesla. to have the competition doing this and tesla is just going full steam ahead. so, i do think part of it is economic. and you can use all these other excuses, but if that is the case, what is going to happen, we believe, during the next five years and you know that's our investment time horizon, we think the cost of an electric vehicle, the average electric vehicle is going to be cut in half. and tesla's new block manufacturing techniques and technology along with a.i. are a big part of this. >> how much -- you've been buying. >> yes. >> on this weakness. >> as we were selling, around 400, 350, when it has been cut in half, down 60% is not the time to run for the hills. if you believe tesla is going to be in this, we also believe, the autonomous taxi network of the united states.

>> right now people are starting to think about tesla again as a car company. i think that's what -- part of what happened in terms of valuation cut, people said at one point, this is a tech company, right? an a.i. company, all sorts of things. and then there were always these players saying it is not that at all, it is a car company, now some people are saying maybe it is a car company. what is it and for the valuation to sustain itself and actually to move higher, does it have to be what you just talked about a robo taxi company, an a.i. company, an all of the above? >> it epitomizes the convergence among technologies that we are seeing today. and the robo taxi network is not and if, it is a when. it is already happening. waymo is out there. proof of concept. so it is going to happen. and if you've tried version 12.3 fsd, you'll see that tesla -- >> this is the full self-driving mode that we should say is not fully self-driving just yet.

>> correct, correct. but if you drive -- if using it, you will find that it is becoming more precise, but also a little more addressive like a human being would be, instead of this, you know, more cautious. so i think we're getting there. yes, but it epitomizes three technologies. robotics, these cars are and will be robots and, of course, he's got the whole humanoid robot going as well. energy storage, autos in the future will be electric. we believe in five years, 75% to 85% of all sales will be electric. here in the united states and around the world -- >> even with the pullback we had in terms of evs and the adoption? >> think about this. yes, because if we're right, it is going to happen to auto prices, the average ev will be in the 20 to $25,000 range. the average gas powered car will be about where it is right now. or a little more. >> when you have the gms and

fords and everybody else saying we can't make these things profitable to begin with, let alone to do it at half the price. >> and think about this, tesla is doing it profitably. and cutting prices in the process. it is pretty phenomenal. can i go the convergence idea -- robots, energy storage will be electric, 75, 85% in five years and artificial intelligence. this is the biggest a.i. project in the world. if nvidia is worth what it is worth, we believe it is worth what the market -- >> at that level? >> we think it is going to have an inventory correction out there. it happens regularly. we have been through very many inventory cycles with nvidia. going to see an inventory cycle as companies reassess how do we get ready for this a.i. age. and there is a reassessment process. we're going through it ourselves. but, if nvidia is -- if its valuation is correct, this a.i.

project has to work. >> what is tesla worth? if you were willing to sell it $300, $400 and buying it now, what is it worth in five years? >> 2,000, we're in print on that. >> $2,000? >> yes. i think about that. it is down 60%, this reminds me very much of 2018, '19, we're in a trading range, and we will be, until more and more analyst investors understand how provocative the convergence of these three technologies is going to be. >> let me ask you this, when you think about the magnificent seven, a lot of people have taken magnificent seven and called it the fabulous four or the something else. tesla is not in it anymore. >> right. >> is that the right way to think about it? what is your magnificent seven look like today? i think about your fund was a lot of the magnificent seven. >> not really. we have actually if you look at the overlap of our fund with the nasdaq or the s&p 500, very little overlap. maybe 5%.

tesla, meta platforms. we think a.i. could be quite disruptive. there are other disruptive forces taking place that could dislodge someof the mag six. gpt 4, for example, i don't have to go -- i can say take me to a place where i can buy these shoes at the cheapest price for delivery -- free delivery in two days. that's disintermediate ion. that's technology at work. >> we were talking about bitcoin back in new york, you've seen it, what do you think is happening? we saw bitcoin go up to 70 something thousand dollars, i was making the argument it has been very tied to the nasdaq, very tied to the markets and as a result it is more likely a function of liquidity and sort of speculation than it is a function of what the federal

reserve is going to do. the federal reserve has been moving the markets, what do you -- what is your analysis of why it moved the way it has? >> okay. up dramatically, you have the etfs, there is something else going on around the world. there are currency devaluations taking place that people are not talking about. the nigerian nira is down. egypt just devalued by 40%. argentina continuing to devalue. i think this is a flight to safety, believe it or not, taking place, a hedge against devaluation, a hedge against a loss of purchasing power and wealth. that's very important. and we saw this even here last year in the united states. regional banks imploded, bitcoin went up 40%. bitcoin does not have counterparty risk. i think -- we're putting out a piece in the next few weeks which isthis is both, get this, a risk on asset and so you talk

about the nasdaq -- >> the risk on. >> it is risk off. i remember we got in at $250 when greece was threatening to leave the euro, right? >> is that folks that are speculating about currency or folks in nigeria and greece and other places saying i got to get my money out of this currency and move it themselves? do you see what i'm saying? >> yes, i think this is an insurance policy against rogue regimes or against just horrible fiscal and monetary policies. >> i want to talk to you about reddit. you've been a buyer of reddit. >> on the offering, we did. >> on the offering. >> would you buy more? what do we think this is? >> we don't think it is a meme stock. it is quite an interesting stock. and from an a.i. point of view, we're looking at it and x as having some of the most valuable data out there to exploit from an a.i. point of view. >> truth social, would you ever

buy truth social? >> probably not. the valuation -- >> you like x though? >> love x. yes. love x because of what this technology leader is going to do with it. and effectively move it towards the everything app. it has -- it has money licenses now. i think in 34 states. so we think it is going back to the future. elon started in the payments industry. sold his business to pay pal. he understands payments. he understands mobile payments. and he also understands how to harness the internet including blockchain technology. >> cathie wood, great to see you in person. thank you. >> thank you. likewise. >> thank you. we got a lot more on "squawk box" this morning. coming up at 7:45 a.m., from right here in kiawah island, monumental sports ceo ted leonsis on the wizards and capitals staying in washington, d.c. the fight that they have had,

the bitter one, between d.c. and virginia over that. at 8:15 a.m. eastern time, as we said, hedge fund manager steve cohen from point72 and the owner of the mets. we'll talk sports, markets and so much more with him, becky. >> andrew, i think this is the first time that ted leonsis is going to speak since that announcement that they would be staying in washington, d.c. there was the huge announcement before that they were moving to virginia, back in december. this was a big move, we had the mayor from washington earlier this week on the show. and this will be the first time ted leonsis is speaking. >> and the numbers, numbers are, you know, in the eye of the beholder, that got a lot of -- even though we didn't make much of it because we're a business network, i think we should have, but some of the numbers that the mayor used in terms of crime statistics were, i mean, violent crime and murders are up like 40% year over year and she is saying something was down -- so it got a lot of play. i'm wondering, one of leonsis'

concerns was how unsafe it is at those facilities. how do they convince him that -- >> part of it is they agreed to have police surveillance there -- >> they have to rehire the place they defunded? >> he did get some concessions on that point. andrew can talk to him about it. but he did get some concessions on that point. >> i think a lot of it was the $515 million in tax incentives that were in place. the biggest debate is whether virginia was going to put up the money and a lot of battles over that now too. >> still scary to -- >> exactly. is it worth spending the money on that. we asked the mayor about that too. ted leonsis is going to walk us through it. that's coming up in a little bit. llhe bk in with you in a little bit. coming up, french hill joins us to talk ukraine funding and other issues that are impacting markets. "squawk box" will be right back.

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congress is back next week and bipartisan efforts to help fund ukraine will be on the top of the agenda. joining us is french hill, always enlightening and a pleasure to have you on, congressman. thanks for joining us. >> thank you, joe. >> couldn't help thinking about leader mcconnell's comments that he's not going anywhere, he's going to stay to fight the good fight against the opposing side. members of his own party. that's where we are right now in the republican party on ukraine. he did. that's -- he didn't say it exactly like that, but the faction that he's talking about

that he needs to stay to sortof defend his viewpoint on for ukraine, he's talking about members of his own party. >> yeah, it is sad. i have been a strong supporter of america's partnership with our european allies and our asian allies in backing ukraine's effort to eject putin from their sovereign country. he made an illegal invasion, starting back in 2014, but then a full scale invasion in february of 2022, and that's been rejected by the united nations, by the g-7, international court of justice, he's a -- putin is a war criminal in this case, and so i think the right thing for us to do is to help ukrainians fight the russians, teach them a lesson because it has global impact. if we let this authoritarian waltz into a country and take it over, control the black sea, control ukraine's agriculture and industrial resources, what is to say that xi or some other

country won't invade a neighbor and do the same thing with no pushback from the global society? >> well, congressman, you, i'm sure you have conversations with the speaker. is there a crack of light? is the door slightly open? i saw that he was willing, maybe, to bring something forward, given some other conditions. and what is his status right now as his -- as the republican majority gets slimmer and slimmer and slimmer in the house? >> right. well, speaker johnson since he became the speaker last october has expressed his strong personal support for america's defense partnership, for our allies, and israel and taiwan and supporting the ukrainians in ejecting putin. he said quite clearly, putin cannot win. and so he has some options on how to get that on to the house floor and get a vote, and when he puts those lethal defense measures for taiwan, israel, on

the house floor, with ukraine, he will get an overwhelming bipartisan vote in my view. the key is for him, how to do it and when to do it and i hope that happens very shortly after this easter recess of this week. >> that's the timing on it, after -- within the next two weeks you think something will actually be brought up? >> that's my view. i think that's important because on april 16th, the council of europe will be meeting in support of my bill, the repo act, to seize russian assets and i hope that whatever we get to the house floor over the next couple of weeks includes a provision whereby countries that enact their local jurisdiction laws can seize russian assets because i think that will be the most effective way to pay for ukraine's reconstruction and teach it economic diplomacy lesson here, joe, if you invade another country, not only will you be met with military force, but we're going to clean out your checking accounts too and

put on sanctions on revenue and your supply chain. we got to demonstrate through diplomacy, military action, and economic diplomacy, that this kind of action cannot continue. >> congressman, the makeup of the house right now, some people point out once a representative is elected, they start running again immediately the first day that the last election ends. the two-year thing is problematic, but that's the way it is, that's the way we do it, it is the way it was designed. but have you ever seen anything like the current makeup of the republican caucus and do you expect this to change in november? is there still going to be this -- i mean, you saw what happened with speaker mccarthy and how many different speakers were put up, none of them could pass muster and get a majority. this is unusual, if not unprecedented. maybe not all around the world. we see, you know, crazy things

happen other places, but not usually here. will it change in november, do you think? back to more normal -- >> i certainly hope so. i hope we increase our majority in the house. that that will give our next speaker, the 119th congress, a more robust ability to move legislation forward. i hope we take the senate back and then in combination we work in conjunction with future trump administration, or against bad ideas from the future biden administration. but i do hope we expand and i expect that we'll expand the number of seats in the house, which will give our next speaker a little bit more partnership. speaker johnson is confronted with the lowest majority since 1917. so, it has been tough for him to get consensus to move forward. >> yeah, and it is kind of self-fulfilling because when, you know, the public sees what happens when republicans have a majority, and this is the

outcome, why would they give them a greater majority in november? it is like counter -- not a good sales job to get more republicans elected in november, congressman. >> even with our thin majority, we have accomplished important things and made significant distinctions with the bidens failed policy, and we met through passing our own border security bill which secures the border and reforms the immigration system that would prohibit this kind of massive flow and overwhelming of our southern border. we have proposed, you were talking earlier, about the crime in washington, d.c., we overridden the city council's four crime policies and passed the bill that president biden signed into law to improve crime there. we talked about independent energy and moving our economy forward with tax and regulatory policy changes. so, look, we're fighting back even in this thin majority, we

can do a lot better job if we had the senate and we have a republican president. >> all right. you answered me. good defense. at least -- but, you know, i appreciate it. trying to give you the other side of things, but that was pretty good rebuttal. i pappreciate it. appreciate having you on this morning. >> always good to be with you. >> you too. >> still to come this morning, your premarket movers, and in the next hour, point72 chairman and ceo, also the owner of the new york mets, steve cohen will be our special guest in a rare and exclusive interview. we'll be right back. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. what national service was established on this day in 1860? the answer when "squawk box" returns. hop! - limping! mmhmm! medical bills! uh-huh! - pancakes! - cash! who pays you cash when you have medical bills? grrr! no idea. [tapping] gap! the gap left by health insurance?

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and with guided learning paths stacked with content curated to fit your unique goals, you can spend less time searching and more time learning. trade brilliantly with schwab. >> announcer: now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. which national service was established on this day in 1860? the answer, the pony express. welcome back to "squawk box." i'm dominic chu with your morning movers today. let's kick things off with a check on shares of disney, flat or so premarket ahead of the big shareholder meeting, just around 7,000 shares of volume. they will have that annual meeting later on today about 1:00 p.m. eastern time and

shareholders will ultimately decide whether to back the company's current board of directors and ceo bob iger or side with activist investor nelson peltz, who is pushing for a change to unlock shareholder value. also up, analysts at guggenheim raised their target price to 140 bucks. it was 125. that's due in part to higher expectations from momentum at the theme parks and experiences division. watching disney shares. we'll stay in that communications services sector and check on shares of both meta platforms and alphabet. both are getting some movement to their price targets at wells fargo. meta up a quarter of a percent. alphabet down roughly a quarter of a percent. the facebook and instagram parent company stays overweight rated and gets a slight target price cut to 600 bucks from 609, due in part to expectations for stronger currency headwinds. the google parent company meanwhile stays equal weight and gets a target price cut to 141 from 144. also due in part to those fx

effects. for more on those analyst calls and other notable calls of the day, head over to cnbc.com/pro. subscribers there can get more details on those stories. and let's cap things off with technology, shares of intel down roughly 4.5%, just over 200,000 shares of volume. the computer chipmaker, dow component, also under pressure after reporting updated financials for its foundry or chip manufacturing business including an operating loss of $7 billion. this represents the first time intel has disclosed stand alone results for that business. but ceo pat gelsinger told investigators ye investors he expects this to be the bottom and he expects it to drive considerable earnings growth in the years ahead. so, intel shares very much a focus, joe, down 4.5%. i'll send things back over to you. >> saw where andrew is, i guess, dom. >> andrew, i did see where andrew is and i am jealous. but i'm not sure, did you think he brought his clubs with him?

>> did you bring your sticks? i don't think he brought -- would you -- if you had a day down there, would you go ocean -- >> i brought my pen. that's all i got. my pen. i got a pen. >> i think looking at andrew right now, it doesn't look like he's dressed for the course. but i'm not sure -- he looks like he's working very hard. i'm not sure the ocean course is in his, you know, future right now. >> the jacket. >> the khakis go on, he could be out there by 12:30, easily. >> you and i -- you and i could be. by the way, i just want to do this, i love this, by the way, right here. >> he does that all the time. the pocket square is awesome. i got mine going on right here. this is an amazing look. >> i think it is sewn in there. what if you do sneeze? does that come out? >> i can take mine out. >> don't do it! >> look, it is real! >> oh, my gosh. >> still to come, thanks, dom, really amazing.

>> you have the garanimals one. >> mine is none of that stuff. i wear a dickey. >> you and cousin eddie. >> yeah. love that man. still to come, disney's board room battle and much more from the annual global srtpos leadership conference hosted by bruin capital and sportico in kiawah island, south carolina. "squawk box" will be right back. hi, i'm david, and i lost 92 pounds on golo. my life partner connie and i were in really rough shape regarding our health. and our doctors told us that we needed to lose weight. i saw a golo commercial and i thought, "we really need to try this." as the weeks went by, the weight came off. we learned to make healthy choices and be supportive of each other. together, we've lost 170 pounds. golo worked for us. since losing weight on golo, i'm feeling grateful and hopeful about the future. (energizing music)

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jay powell will be speaking in california later today about the economy. a new cnbc survey gauges how some americans feel about the current economic climate and how that compares to those in several other countries. cnbc's senior personal finance correspondent sharon epperson joins us right now with some of the results from that survey. hi, sharon. >> hi, becky. taking the pulse of their views about the economy, responses of those who were surveyed were mixed. while u.s. adults surveyed were pretty evenly split in their feelings about where the economy is heading, a majority of respondents in mexico, singapore and switzerland were optimistic. most adults surveyed in the uk, france, spain, germany and australia had a pessimistic outlook. this cnbc your money international financial securities survey was conducted by survey monkey min march. overall, a majority of those

surveyed said they're stressed about their personal finances these days. inflation is the main source of their financial stress, more than their lack of savings, economy wide instability, aging or rising interest rates. as a result, in the u.s. and eight other countries, most respondents in the survey said beside their main job, they rely on their personal savings for financial security, more so than government assistance, a pension or retirement plan or investment income. however, having enough personal savings may be difficult for many of them to achieve since most of those surveyed said they're living paycheck to paycheck. you can see more results from this survey at cnbc.com/yourmoney. >> in this one, you were surveying consumers. if you were to compare that with what ceos have to say, what -- do they match up? is there a different view? >> the view is still not totally optimistic. but it is -- it has improved from a year or so ago.

pwc did a survey and looked at about 4,000 top ceos around the world, and their optimism and outlook for the economy is improving, but it is not like most of them think it is a rosy picture. >> but inflation being the number one issue, that's a big deal. >> it is a big deal and it is consistent with many other surveys. we're looking at organizations like the national foundation for credit counseling, financial capability of adults, they did a survey, they also found that many, many americans overwhelmingly are stressed and what is more important, they're very concerned about the instability of the government impacting their finances over the next 12 months and that perhaps is stopping them from doing some of the planning that they need to do to become more financially secure. >> literally generations didn't know what inflation was. 40 years. 40 years where it is, like, oh, yeah, i heard of inflation. is it really that bad? companies can raise prices --

but then when you see it firsthand, and we still do it, and lucky for us, it is a novelty. it sounds horrible, but when i see it, whoa, that costs that much? can you imagine, if you have x amount of dollars and four kids, and this amount of income, and you are paying 20, 25% more, and haven't made that much more -- you are buying less. you're substituting -- >> you're buying less. the portions are less. you can't afford to -- >> hamburger helper without the hamburger. >> that's why so many of the people in our survey said they're living paycheck to paycheck. >> that's the most insidious probably -- it is almost -- it is not as bad as losing your job, obviously, but hand and hand. >> there is nothing you can do to control inflation as the individual. you can't do anything. >> sharon, thank you. >> sure. >> andrew, what do you have coming up? >> we got a lot coming up.

the battle over the future of disney. analyst michael nathanson will join us after the break. before we even do that, we got ted leonsis, we're going to have that conversioin jatn ust a little bit. and then steve cohen will be with us. and rafael bostic. a lot more coming up on "squawk box" after this.

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all right, for the latest on the disney board room battle, we want to bring in michael nathanson, founding partner and senior research analyst. michael, the word is, at least according to sources close to this that disney has the votes it needs. those votes can change. it is going to be close either way. what is the -- what does tomorrow look like for disney? >> i think tomorrow looks like a bit happier day for disney's management, but they have to basically do what they're doing today and the day before, they have to talk about profitability and focus on improving their content cycle. i think if that's true, they'll be happy, because i know they put a lot of effort into convincing shareholders to vote along their side. >> if management is happier

tomorrow, what is the shareholder feeling not just tomorrow, but let's say six months to 12 months from now? >> yeah, you know, i think shareholders clearly heard from the company and it feels to me after a really bumpy year and a half the company is on the right foot. they changed cfos five months ago. that's a big difference. i think shareholders are looking forward to improving profitability and streaming, fixing the content slate, looking at their cost base, they have more costs other places. i believe they found their footing. i always say a year ago, if trion had tried this, they probably would have won, because people are so unhappy with the stock price and where it was heading. so i think the past five months have really changed perceptions for -- you see by the stock price -- for investors and management. >> is it all about the stock price? if the stock price is up, investors are happy, they have done the cuts. that's the easier part. what happens just in terms of fixing the offerings, the

contents? that's tougher. >> yeah. it is definitely tougher. and i think people believe that, you know, iger, first run was so successful, the content side, give him some time to see what he can do to fix that. and then they have to integrate, they just did it, hulu and disney plus. they have two, three products in streaming, they need to slim that down. so, those things won't happen overnight. i believe when they're talking on earnings about their -- their focus, the markets reacted positively. you see by the stock price. you're right. the stock was in the 90s. very different conversation. but i think they found their narrative and people trust in what they're doing now. >> michael, thank you for joining us today. >> you got it, becky. >> andrew? >> coming up in just a moment, the chairman and ceo of monumental sports and entertainment which owns the washington wizards and washington capitals making lots of headlines. we're going to talk about them. ted leonsis joins us right after

this. and then point72 chairman and ceo and neowr of the new york mets in his first interview on cnbc ever, steve cohen joins us for an exclusive interview you do not want to miss. "squawk box" coming back after this.

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welcome back to "squawk box." we spoke earlier this week with the washington, d.c. mayor after signing a $515 million deal with the monumental sports ceo ted leonsis to keep the wizards and capitals in d.c. he joins me here in kiawah island this morning. it is great to see you. first time you're speaking out after this deal was finally made. it appeared for a moment or more than a moment you might be going to virginia. now you've come back. tell us about how this happened and it has been a controversial one, because there are folks in washington who didn't want to give the tax benefits, there were folks in virginia who didn't want to give it, there

were folks saying whether you were going to be leaving town and ado you really love washington or not? how do you think about all of this? >> i love washington. but, you know, these are big businesses and we hire lots of people, we generate a lot of tax revenues, governor of virginia is a businessman, he politics tu will, policy and partnership, prosperity gets pushed to the side, and, knoyou know, i reall really admire what our mayor did. she was steadfast, reaching out, like a businessperson and yesterday the council voted 12-0 for us to continue and -- >> did you ever -- was this a big negotiation or did you think glenn youngkin had a deal for you? appeared for a while he had a deal for you. a handshake. then obviously d.c. came back. were you always trying to play everybody? >> not at all.

that's not my style but handshakes in business mean a lot, and so the governor had a good business plan. the great news was that our mayor had seen data. it's funny when you read all the time. are these real good economic engines? well, the city in d.c. owns the baseball stadium and the navyyard? national pash is is the real growth engine for the city. drive through you'll see seven cranes up there. so we need to do that now in downtown d.c. again. i've taken sort of responsibility it's not just our building but we need to work with. >> the other news what's happening in kansas city. in that town, they don't want to give the tax benefits to owners. this will play out, i think, across the country. so many stadiums built really after camden yards, early '90s,

there were 25, 30-year leases and we're coming up on the end of a lot of these leases and there's going to be a lot of this back and forth? >> yeah. our building originally cost $150 million. to replicate it $1.5 billion to $2 billion. interest rates are very high. usually you try to use someone else's balance sheet to get things financed at a lower rate. i own my building. in maryland the state just gave $1 billion 200 million to the orioles, and to the ravens. as i said, the city paid $600 million to own the baseball stadium. >> but you've read the articles that say there's not economic benefits to the cities and this whole idea -- populist view -- which is why are taxpayers giving money to billionaires? right? the argument. >> a very, very fair argument. other than the data doesn't

support that there's not great economic benefit and return. wes morris is a really, really smart guy. he's the governor, and they have set up the stadium authority. most successful stadium authority in the country. the mayor has data, as i said, on how much tax revenues regenerated, but the inscilliar of downtown. >> which way they're going, on a rocket ship. go down, up? what happened with television, here from espn, the value of lineartive and bundle and everything else. you brought in qatar investment authority into the wizards and cavs just this summer. >> yeah. >> how much in terms -- the valuations of these teams to

continue do you need private equity money and other money to be brought into the leagues only so many american families can be owners of these things? >> pension funds, sovereign right funds are the right direction, because their goals are like family goals. we want to be in it nofor a lifetime. steady growth, durable brands. durable businesses. private equity is usually managing someone else's business. getting fees. they want to get in and out, but with the prices that these teams can sell for, and it's not based on fundamental economics. it's not like teams are very profitable cash flow but we do have a reoccurring revenue business, and, of course, everyone looks at, what's the new national tv deal going to be for the nba. >> what do you think that deal's

going to look like? >> i think it will look good. i think -- >> do you have to split it up among a lot of different networks? >> well, i think the media world changed dramatically and a tapestry of partnerships and alliances. i think we have to be more global. totally digital. i bought my rsn, if you will, and we just launched and opened probably the world's most advanced digital global network. >> make more money on your rsn than in the olden days? >> i wouldn't say that yet. although we do see growth because of the sponsorship and being able to integrate venues teams and the local network. i think we tend to overdrama tise what's happening.

more than 12 moillion people watched that women's game. over delivered by like 50%. asked go back to advertisers and get more money from them? no. it will help in the future. >> you own the mystics. >> right. >> women's basketball, some of the women's teams. ten years from now, valuation of those teams what happens? >> essential the growth stock right now. women's sports. i mean, we've been an advocate. one of the longest tenured wnba owners. we own a piece of the wnba by owning an nba team then by owning the wnba team itself and we participated in the investment at the league level. we really believe. i want to go further. what i'd like to do is make washington, d.c. the capital of women's professional sports. so i could see one day us

replicating what we've done at monumental and we could have a women's hockey team. we could have women's baseball teams. women's volleyball teams. i mean, i think that that whole platform is getting ready to explode. >> before i let you go. i want to talk about the world central kitchen. i know you supported along with jeff bezos and many others. seven of their workers obviously killed in gaza and i know you talked to him recently about this. >> yes. he was there at the announcement with the mayor. jose's restaurants are all around our arena. jose and i have been friends for a long time and the man is a saint. he had just come back from gaza, and it's really -- very emotional and very real, right? that you talk to him. he set up 60 kitchens. serving millions of meals, and now they -- they've lost seven volunteers, and they're shutting

it down. and it's -- it's run of those things where you read -- you read articles. you know, watching the news, but then it hits home, and it's -- a tragedy of unspeakable proportions and our heart goes out to all of those people, but they're doing great, great work, and it's stopped now. so who knows what's going to happen. >> what do you they should happen? >> in gaza. it has to be rationalized and there has to be a cease-fire right now. really does. jose was given reports on what he was seeing, and as usual, it's women, it's young people. it's people that don't have any opportunity to find their way out. >> right. >> and so -- it's time. and this was very, very personal and our heart goes out to everybody. >> ted leonsis, thank you for joining us this morning. appreciate it. great to see you. joe, back to you. >> thanks. coming up, a wide-ranging

interview with point 72 chairman and ceo owner of the new york mets steve cohen and then atlanta fed proceed raphael bostic on the fed's interest rate path. could be just standing still.

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♪ ♪ learn more about a brighter way engineered to minimize noise. and built for adventure. which can also be your own quiet cabin in the woods. the fully electric q8 e-tron. an electric vehicle that recharges you. how we get there matters. treasury yields trending higher again. the ten year at levels it hasn't seen since last year. we're going to get commentary on rates this hour and the fed's path forward in an uncertain

environment. atlanta fed president raphael bo bostic joining us and new york mets owner steve cohen. you do not want to miss this hour. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site. in times square. umbrellas all over the place. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick. andrew's reporting live from south carolina. my sources, andrew, tell me do not go out there. if you were thinking about the ocean course. blustery. yeah. the weather, it's not a golf day. >> wind's going to take my ball into the water. i know. i know. >> yeah. it would be the wind.

yeah. it wouldn't be -- i'm sure right down the fairway and then blows! >> my swing. right. >> exactly. u.s. equity futures, take a look this morning. seeing the dow actually up a whopping one point. almost a point. not much happening there bought couple rough sessions monday and tuesday. haven't seen that in quite a while. still not even a 2% pullback yet anywhere, but if treasury yields continue to be the focus, who knows. now ten year, 437. remember last week? 420. prior to that, we noted when we went back above 4. it wasn't that long ago said, oh, look. fed's cutting six times. >> we're not. >> we're back above four. yeah, we're not. >> we're not. for more on the markets over to our senior markets commentator mike santoli. mike, joe made the point again that we're less than 2% from the highs, 1.5% from highs.

yet things are starting to feel -- i don't know. anxious vibes off. why is that? >> becky, one thing absolutely true. joe says. not even a 2% key line but a wobbling start second quarter. everyone acknowledgement says an overbought market. almost never go more, much more than five months without having a proper pullback and, yeah. we notice what's happening with bond yields. a lot of this rally owing to upturn in earnings. economy bet than expected. longer-term bond yields also and benign and likely the fed looking for a chance to cut rates if it cooperates. all in play still. the uptrend very solid. 20-day moving average, relative. approximately that line and essentially not challengeded. down 1.2% from highs. one of the reasons is all different parts of the market moving independently so the

market can rotate and stay supportive. cbo implied correlation index is basically a measure how the market believes individual stocks move independent from the index or altogether. when the market's stressed after sbd last year, yield panic last summer, a stock market correction. moving on fundamentals as o opposed to risk on/risk off. generally a good thing but it's turning higher. hard to get lower. have to be on alert for some kind of potential air pocket out there, if the dip buyers don't show up before 2% decline. did want to show this here too. commodities. oil and gold, how they're doing. two year of gsci commodity index is about 60% energy because of its consumption weight. you see a sort of down trend for 18 months.

maybe uponed above it, but not at challenging levels. it tells me we're not getting a lot of help on inflation necessarily from further goods deflation. maybe kind of a global production ramp story and a little bit of a demand side thing, joe. >> great. thanks, mike. crude oil prices hitting their highest level since late october on a combination of tensions in the middle east. russia, ukraine and larger than expected fall of u.s. inventory. here to talk about where energy prices could be going and has a pretty good view of the envir landscape. don, goldman-sachs head of research. a three-shot. we ask. you see, some people sitting up too high we say we all need to be -- with you i had to ask. do we want you to look like us or what you really are? right? >> back up. stand up. >> yeah. let's stand. >> go ahead.

>> don is 6'8". if we do need a team, if -- >> hi! you're amazing. >> you are. real good at what you do. >> i became a commodity strategist because basketball and tennis didn't work out. >> either one. tall guys seem to be great at tennis, too. i guess, a center in today's world. probably a power forward or something like that. let's talk, i mean, talking oil obviously. you can definitely begin with that, but commodities complex has been strong. is there one overriding theme that is making that happen? >> the markets are converging to view the economy, commodities demand further than people believe end of last year. >> it's just -- not money printing, it's not -- i mean, gold. when's the last time you saw gold -- quiet a while. saucer bottom, broke out three, four months ago to new highs.

but, you know, seems like it's moving -- at least pulling other commodities up as well. >> yeah. impressive gold continues to hit new level el all-time highs despite the fact usual usually higher growth expectations, typically hurts gold. gold is benefiting from separate demand winds from eu central banks. yesterday data for february. ninth consecutive month continue to rise. consumers in china worried about the property market. looking for alternative places to put their money. timely i think investors also like gold as a geopolitical hedge. uncertainty in the middle east, ukraine, u.s. elections. i think that third driver is also helping oil to some extent in our recommendations to go long commodities because we think both gold and energy provide a solid political hedge,

hedging value. >> move to 85 on oil, which people thought might have happened a lot sooner. why did it happen this time? why did it happen now and what is an upside of that? is 100 coming? >> yes. so three factorses to drive the rally. number one, demand stronger than the kmamarket expected. pmi leads providing the latest lag to the rally. and last year coming in a touch lower than consensus looked for pnd land last, not least, year-to-date money managers bought 400 million barrels of oil futures. a lot of oil, paper barrels have been bought. >> why? >> i think in part because the market is turning more optimistic on demands and the market is recognizing that opec cuts, they do work. we got to use, you know an hour

ago, news opec will go to second quarter. >> higher oil prices combined with higher manufacturing results make you, again, get back to the idea, should the fed be cutting here? what happens if they do? >> the goldman research view has been growth will be strong. to some extent fed cuts of optional. because growth look is solid. that said, if core inflation comes down in u.s. pce terms to low 2s, fed and especially chair powell will believe that and still high relative to -- >> why can't you tell me what core inflation is going to do, given you know what oil's doing and what commodities are doing? do you expect core pce to come down? seems you're making the case it shouldn't come down or at least -- >> best case for brent, stay in high 80s. >> that wouldn't cause -- not enough to make pce -- >> no. core pce, which fed mostly is

focused on doesn't directly -- airfare, for instance, yeah. >> exactly. >> and economists and economy, forecasts consistent. use their numbers, they're consistent. energy prices will consolidate at currently high numbers. >> and can you -- can you hit free throws, if you have a problem? was that the problem? >> better than for free shooters. >> because, why we're about -- the other night, you need to be able to hit those. >> i love economics. i love commodities. happy where i am. thanks for having me. >> all right. andrew? next, guys, coming up in a moment, atlanta fed president raphael bostic joins us on "squawk box" live. next, interview talking about all morning. ceo and yes, new york mets owner

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning. we're in kiawah island and have a special guest. steve cohen is here. president of point 72, a long-time veteran of wall street and hedge fund manager and beginning fourth season now as owner and chairman and ceo of the new york mets. and it is great to have you on the program, for the very first time. the very first time. >> got to try everyone once. right? >> try everything wuonce. i want to talk about so many things. sports, business of owning sports and get into the markets and what you're thinking more broadly as well. i wanted to start with actually the team this year. unfortunately. >> yeah. >> given the win streak or really the opposite in terms where we are, how do you think about that as an owner, but how do you think about that as a hedge fund manager? >> well, i mean, it's only four

games into the season. right? >> right. >> equivalent getting off to a bad start. say a hedge fund year. a couple down days early in january. still a lot of time left to, you know, do what you normally do. so, yeah. nobody wants to start 0-4. i mean, but, you know, it's early. right? you know, during the season you're going to have losing streaks. we just happened to have one at the beginning. >> what is this like for you? your whole life fundamentally changed now in the public eye in a way -- >> the public eye. >> you haven't been. well i should say a shift in public eye. actually doing interviews and things, being more public. how do you feel just about that? >> it's something that i knew buying the mets would be much more public, but i enjoy it. i realized i enjoyed it. i had no idea. you sit behind screens long as i have and kind of, you know, not necessarily, you have to do that

type of stuff. so i actually enjoy it. i actually enjoy interacting with fans, doing press conferences. just a stretch for me. something different. >> how much of being, doing what you've done in business is similar or different to this, in terms of the analytics, the way you think about even -- you trade stocks? >> yes. >> you own a team. trade players. >> right. >> is it similar or totally different? >> it's different. i mean, you know, people think that -- i'm not making the decisions. my baseball people are making the decisions. my job is to, you know, when they need me to support their decision. they come to me, say this is what i want to do. i've never said "no" to anything. i mean, we have discussions and talk about it, but those ideas are not coming from me. which is totally differ than running my hedge fund. i'm much more involved in the hedge fund. >> right. >> frankly, in my hedge fund, also, we have 200 portfolio managers. i'm not telling them what to do either.

okay? i give them the risk limits and things like that. i'm always available if they need to discuss anything. so i'm used to operating a very decentralized way and give people a lot of room. >> big question about baseball. valuations of the teams. spent a lot of money on yours. also how much money these teams spend on a given year for players, different markets, big markets, small markets. >> yes. >> what do you think of the system right now in terms of what's happened in baseball? >> yeah. i think we're in one of those moments in baseball where people are thinking about, okay. what do we like about the system? what we don't. 30 owners. 30 different opinions. still trying to figure it out. there's no doubt that smaller market clubs aren't crazy about large-market club spending a lot's money. or within, we're all operating within the rules thatbaseball sets out. >> does money buy winning?

people say money doesn't buy love. >> clearly not. okay? we tried that. the real problem is, if you're trying to build a team through free agency, that's such a tough place to be, because you're fighting the agent curve. buying players based on previous history but they're getting older. as you get older performance overtime declines. a tough place to be. you really want to develop talent. no different than i do in my hedge fund. okay? that's the similarities between the two. >> okay. you have been famous for cutting your losses in the hedge fund world. >> yeah. >> famously. if things aren't going well you cut your losses. can you do that in baseball? >> i kind of did it last year. >> kind of did. where the question's going. >> yeah. so leading me to the, to that question. but, yeah opinion i mean, i looked at it and realized that the team was probably mot going to make the playoffs. and even if it did, probably wasn't going to get very far in

the playoffs. it was, i think at that point a 15% chance making playoffs. a lot of teams in front of us. hard to pull off. so -- you know, we had contracts were you know -- felt it wasn't going to change in -- in '23. in '24 probably wouldn't get any better. i did a complete pivot and i think i shocked baseball in the extent that i did it. but for me, it's just natural, because, you know, i looked and said, okay. i don't like the positions i have. >> right. >> so i wanted to make a change. >> you won a ring. how many years will it take to get there? how much will it cost? >> well -- i don't care about the cost side. i think over time -- >> you think about this as a -- philanthropic? >> i do. why i bought the team. exactly why i bought the team and said in my original press conference if i can make

millions of people happy, how cool is that? i actually do it as a civic responsibility. now, listen, nobody wants to lose money forever, spend money at not have success. to me, i deem success not only winning the world playoffs, wing world series. creating a farm sim creates talent over the years over and over again. >> the economy piece of it, though. i was going to ask. valuations of these teams. where do they go? jimmy from espn, we're wondering what's happening to linear television. i know you can't talk about individual stocks. talking earlier some of your companies, pns including bought fox. >> yeah. >> what do you think happens to the media landscape, if you will? sort of an investment question. >> yeah. >> as it relates to whatever happens to that, impacting the

valuation of sports teams like your own? >> well, you would think that valuations are tied into profitability. right? or some measure. and right now because of what's going on in the cable industry and media in general, you know, revenues for teams are probably going to go down over the short term as we figure out what the new model is. it's clearly going to be streaming but the question is, is it going to be a bundle? bundled with other -- baseball, all sports are trying to figure it out, and, you know, some sports are better off than others. nfl, a national package. right? most of the revenues come from that. in baseball, some revenues for teams, are local revenues. so that's a problem. at the appreciation of, let's take baseball. baseball's only appreciated teams, i think, like 6% a year since the early 2000s. i don't think that's

extraordinary recurrence. so when you think about it, you can probably have done better in the index fund. >> ask you this, though. one of the pieces, component parts is, the future of betting in the business. real estate in play with citi field. >> yes. >> this idea you might be able to build a 50-acre, both park and mall and all sorts of things. >> not a mall. not a mall. >> and a casino. >> we call it an entertainment complex. music, gaming. 1,500 hotel rooms, 2,500 acre park. build a separate area fans can go and go to restaurants. >> what's it going to take to get that approved in new york? how much has to be given by tax p taxp taxpayers? talked to ted leonsis, what happeneds in kansas city. those taxpayers don't want to pay for it. >> i totally get that.

we're financing it privately. an $8 billion project. >> you think get nothing from the city? >> you know, i'm not as steep in the weeds on, but generally, i would say the vast, vast majority of the money's coming from private sources. me and my partner. >> right. and -- the casino piece, the betting piece. how important is that? >> that's the xmik economic eng. can't spend that money and have a bunch of restaurants. not going to work. you need an economic engine. that's it. that's going to provide all the other great stuff. >> as a guy in the markets how do you feel about betting as relates to sports? i ask ohtani's in the news, everybody saying's what the? >> right, yeah. >> by the way, curious what you think happened there. >> i have no idea, but i'm going to trust him. >> you're going to trust him. >> i'm going to trust him. seems like someone that is so -- focused on his stuff that i could see how -- >> do you think just have to

figure out, given superstar status, they can't let this -- >> they have to investigate and they will. you know, they're good at that type of stuff and they'll get to the bottom of it. >> separately, we're here in the sports conference. you invested in golf in a big way. >> that's right, yes. >> partnered with fenway as well as part of that. >> that's right, what is your thesis on golf and what do you think's going to happen with liv as well in terms of the saudis? >> we think it's a -- an interesting investment, a global sport. rounds going up on a yearly basis. so we think the way it's been run, we think we can improve operations and make it much more profitable. i love golf. okay? i mean, you know -- >> you're a golfer. >> brought my clubs here. i'll be on the range later today. >> the wind is not good.

blame the wind. >> it's an outdoor sport. right? same in baseball. sometimes the wind blows, and, yeah. we think it's a really interesting investment. obviously, you know, golf's at a moment where there's a lot of stuff going on that needs to be worked out. but we think we can work it out, and we're excited to get involved and help the sport grow. >> you have a thesis, i'm told, that you actually shared with yasser from piff. >> that's right. >> about the workweek. talk about working from home, working from the office. you think it's actually behind part of your investment in golf and actually bebe hind your thoughts how the whole economy changes? >> yeah. i think i would have done the golf investment anyway. i think there's a longer-term thought, but -- >> what's your thought? >> my belief a four-day workweek is coming. you know, just -- between the advent of a.i., you know, generally. i just -- you know, we hear from

people that fridays of just not -- people are not as productive on fridays. i think it's an eventuality. when it happens, hard to know. should fit into a theme of more leisure for people. golf rounds goes up, that means. and interests go up. yeah. i guess courses crowded on fridays. >> the other investments around that idea? >> anything around, you know, i would say leisure travel, right? experiences. all that type of stuff. right? that makes, you know, people have more time -- >> you don't anticipate letting your edtraers and p.m.s not work -- on saturday working? >> you know something? taking off friday and have a portfolio, that's a problem. okay. if markets are open. forgetting us. okay? i mean vast majority of people will get an opportunity, i think, at some point to have a three-day weekend. >> you know, i'd asked earlier how it feels to shift into this

more public role but i am curious how it feels to be, you're now a beloved person in new york. >> maybe. okay? we haven't won. okay? >> that's a shift from over the last ten years, the headlines ten years ago. curious how you, on a very personal level, have felt about whatever that journey has felt like? >> i'm the same guy. okay? i haven't changed. okay? it's just -- i just think it's so interesting how ten years ago, you know, obviously, tons of articles highly negative of me and my firm and then the "new york times" writes an article like a year, a glowing article. i'm the same guy. okay? shows you that the world keeps turning, and, you know, just -- enjoy your life and amazing what can happen. >> i do want to talk about investing and where you are. i know you can't talk about individual names, but put it in baseball terms given that's your other business now. what inning are we in?

in a bubble in terms of equity markets? >> i don't think it's a bubble. i think markets are discounting some of what we -- they think a.i.'s going to do for companies. >> you think it's discounting? >> discounting. >> you think there's even more upside as a result of a.i.? >> i do. my view, this is a really durable theme. give you weren't anecdote. my cto comes to me says i can save the firm $25 million by doing -- using these llms to improve our efficiency. now, we're a nice-sized firm. not a huge firm. imagine what big companies can do, and that's just one thing. okay? gives you a little bit of a look into what's possible. >> right. and so, you know, people -- there is a view, it's the, is the a.i. boom what does that mean for chips? when you look at that, who do you think the winners and losers

are? >> not talking about individual stocks. okay? but there's going to be, going to be big winners and big losers. okay? because this is transformational. and -- so, you got to do the work and figure out, you know, what companies are going to benefit. and frankly it's going to be companies that you haven't even heard of. new companies. you have technological change like this reminds me of the '90s where the bet new companies came out of that period. >> doesn't that mean we're in 1996? we're in 1999? >> we're not in '99, knoi don't think so. doesn't mean goes up in a straight line. right? it may take a while for this a.i. theme actually to really take hold within companies and trying to figure how to use it. >> right. >> so when you -- this is so -- it has potential to change how my firm operates. if you're a company and you're

not thinking about this. >> right. >> you know, you're going to wake up one day and go, we're in trouble. >> we have raphael bostic from the fed on in a little bit. >> yeah. >> what do you think about where the fed is today? are you expecting cuts to come this year at all anymore? how do you think about what the fed's doing and how much that's propelling the market one way or the other? >> yeah. i think the market expects three cuts. i think that's the number. i don't -- i don't disagree with that. i think inflation's been you know, somewhat contained. i think, you know, ultimately it will come down to is ithat a tre statement or not? fed thinks down 2%. inflation rate wla. >> what do you think? >> that's going to be hard. i don't get in the weeds quite like that. 2.5. those are fed watchers. >> right. >> but, i think comes down to

theirs still a lot of under employment in the country. so it really comes down to if growth is too fast you start getting constraints on labor. and wages go up. that may be a problem. it's hard -- we're in a period i don't think many know exactly what's going to happen. >> we could talk on the broadcast whether we're in a risk on/risk off situation. look at the magnificent seven. look at the nasdaq. the flip side, bitcoin. do you own any bitcoin? >> very little, actually. a little bit. >> you own a little bit. really little. >> for what reason? >> the only reason my son is really into it and had me play a round try to figure out how to, like -- transact on coin bit so i bought a little bit. >> do you have a take what's going on with bitcoin or what it really represents? >> i don't follow it that closely. it's not kind of what i do. an element of the population

uses it and maybe it's the new goal. hard to know. right? so i don't have a strong opinion on t. right. the reason i ask about bitcoin, though, to the extent some think that's a hedge against, you know, inflation on one side. >> say there's gold or -- >> right? >> you know, a new instrument. that's the argument. we'll see. really hard to know. i think ultimately, i mean, bitcoin is separate from crypto. >> right. >> i think ultimately it's an use case. will crypto develop use cases? bitcoin is interesting but just a piece of that whole ecosystem. >> and then in terms of how you think about, i mean, talking earlier about the election. do you think the election's will have a huge impact on the markets at this point? >> i think a little bit. obviously, trump comes in, you can imagine, you know, perhaps tariffs. i mean, that's certainly possible. >> right. >> probably going to be

perceived, good for growth. but, you know, growth has been fine already. and if he comes in it's good for growth, and constrained labor environment, you know, that may stoke some inflation feears. it's possible. i don't see a big difference either way. >> inside the firm, a house view how the election pans out? >> we think today we probably would say trump has an edge, but it's so herbal. >> -- so early. >> it could change. >> they're volatile. >> very volatile. thank you for being here. great to have this conversation. hope to do this again. >> thank you. i'm available next week. >> available next week. we'll see you next week. steve cohen, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> good luck with the season, and see where things go. good luck with your golf. hope the weather krcooperates. joe, back to you. atlanta fed president

raphael bostic. that and more when "squawk box" returns.

just a few minutes ago the march ad private payroll report showed 180,000 jobs created last month. joining us to talk about this, the fed and more steve liesman who has has a special guest. >> becky, very special guest. raphael bostic joins us from inside the atlanta fed.

good morning, president bostic. can you hear me? president bostic, i don't know if he can hear me. looks like he's frozen. we're going to -- what we're going to do take a very quick break. technical problems with this and fix it, bring him back, perhaps on the phone and we'll talk to raphael bostic on the other side of this break. . go deeper with thinkorswim: our award-wining trading platforms. unlock support from the schwab trade desk, our team of passionate traders who live and breathe trading. and sharpen your skills with an immersive online education crafted just for traders. all so you can trade brilliantly.

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all right. welcome back, everybody. again, we were just talking about the adp numbers out up 184,000, the jobs number according to adp. up stronger than anticipated. gains just 155,000 anticipated. let's get right out to steve liesman to talk more about this. stronger than anticipated jobs, usually a good sign. hiring more people. in this instance market's lower. might be because of concern what that means for potential rate cuts from the fed? >> yeah. of course, trying to restore the connection with raphael bostic. hopefully that will happen soon. becky, i guess i've stopped being surprised by job surprises. seems like that is the norm and somehow some way we've got to adjust or readjust our expectations on jobs. i don't know if you remember, but several months ago i did a story about the ghost workers. in other words, atting more

workers than the economy seemed capable of delivering. there's a nice story in "the journal" from the brookings institute stud fri wendy allegedberg, a frequentguest on "squawk" immigration may be playing a role. if that's true more workers, a bigger pool mean where is we're drawing them from and essentially not necessarily inflationary to be adding these workers, because they're there and we're not so much paying up for them. that said, there's a couple interesting points in this jobs report this morning from adp. you see that the job stayers, 5 5. 5.51% growth. changers, up. a big jump. seems employers are paying up to get workers to move, to change. >> counter to the idea of this not being inflationary. >> yeah. >> you are an employer you have to pay up by 10% to lure

somebody into th,ut that on top of higher min much wages like california. talked about this week. min much wages for fast-food workers up by 25% overnight. take that and add it together with the ism numbers stronger than anticipated. these are all great signs about the economy you see stronger hiring, seeing stronger manufacturing numbers. maybe more demand. talked with an oil analyst this morning, reason oil is up, more demand on the global markets for this. all of those are good things, but look at what happened with the pce and inflationary numbers, that's the other side of this. it's good to a certain extent until it's not. >> okay. you're forcing me to tell you the first two questions i have for raphael boftics, if we get him back. one, president bostic, is the economy accelerating here counter to what we thought was going to happen? again, economists keep forecasting this weakness coming

down the road. we've got the atlanta fed gdp, 28. private sector apart from the atlanta fed a little below but the direction of gdp forecast for the first quarter still in to the upside. then the second question, which is this -- does the economy have to decelerate in order to bring down inflation to the fed's 2% target? this is a conversation we've had running with joe and you on "squawk box" here with the answer from 2023, it was, we didn't have to. able to do strong growth and bring down inflation, but here we are now in this, i don't know what you want to call it, the doldrums of inflation progress, perhaps is a way to put it. we've had two lousy months. january and february. well, february not quite as lousy as january but, again, you pointed out yesterday. upside revisions to january. february okay. now march, if oil prices say high commodity prices stay high and see what happens with wages in the friday jobs report, looks

like progress stalled. maybe what was not true in 2023 might be true in 2024, which is -- get to that 2% target. >> a question. i don't want to overstate the concerns about inflation, but it's also -- you know, in the middle of being data-dependent, it's a little concerning. when you start looking at the deficit spending at this point. >> right. >> things that add up. the idea you have higher treasury yields especially i think we talked about it last week, steve. compare us to what you see in germany or other countries. 4.4%. knocking on the door again. >> right. i'm going to suspect that the fed doesn't mind seeing these yields being a bit higher. i think if their concern is getting back down to that 2% target, they certainly want the market to do more work for it, and what you had is this real, you know, fairly significant decline in yields.

what was it? last year. it's come back and now a little bit more restrictive. i was looking this morning. upper, upper end of the range and, rick, of course, is the expert on this. 490. about 5% on the ten year. now it's 4.39. >> if they want the market to do the work for them stop talking about rate cuts as if they're imminent. >> that's an interesting idea, but still, that's part of my questioning. which is, do you have to bring rates down? if you don't bring rates down, becky, what happens? according to most fed officials, you end up being tighter than you need to be. so the question becomes, how tight is the fed? we heard from mester yesterday. interesting. she owned one of the long-run dots going up, becky. she's now at neutral at 3% compared to the median of 2.5. i tried to hammer home. maybe unsuccessfully at least at first after those dots came out, the fed shifted to the right as it would be more hawkish in a

lot of ways. wrote it down yesterday. here it is right now. in december only four officials were at 3% long run or higher and now it's at seven for the long run. which is to say median fed official thinksalities less high than we thought before the recent dots came out in march. >> all right. steve, hold that thought. come back. still working on getting bostic's shot up. meantime, joe i think you're going to -- talk to dom. oh -- wait. never mind. >> i think we are. steve, it's a go for president bostic, i think. so -- give it a shot, steve. don't screw it up this time. >> all right. i am willing to take the blame, if that's the story. i will say perhaps we're finding out that before a.i. and before those quantum computers we have basic tech stuff to get right in this country. president bostic, can you hear me and are you there, sir? >> i am here. can you hear me? >> i got you.

great. great to hear you. it would be better to see you but we'll take a rain check on that. i don't know if you heard but i told becky my first question, what it would be to you. given what's happened with the atlanta fed gdp now and given what's happened with the economic data we've seen, do you feel like the economy is accelerating here? >> so i don't know if i would say accelerating. i think it's maintaining the strong momentum it's had, really for the second half of 2023. i think everyone has been expecting it to slow at a faster pace than it has. it might feel like there's extra energy, but i'm not hearing from my contacts that things are getting faster or stronger, that demand is moving in that direction. it's just staying very strong where it was and if there's any weakness or weakening it's just at a very incremental level. >> we were talking just a minute ago about this idea that we had thought that the economy, fed

chair powell said it several times going back to, i don't know. 2022, in jackson hole. the economy needed to slow in order to bring inflation back down to target. that did not end up meeting to the true in 2023. do you feel it's needed now? does the economy need to slow to hit that 2% target? >> well, i think over the longer arc, we've had a dozen slows to get to that longer run potential. at some point there's going to be just too much energy in the economy and you'll start to see upward pressure on prices. right now, the supply has, responded quite well both in terms of supply chain and labor force. and as evidence would suggest that productivity is elevated as well. so as long as those things are in place i think you can still give growth and see inflation coming down. i will also say in that environment expect inflation to

come down much slower than many expected. that's one reason why i've really tried to pull back my expect aces when we'll need to move, because if that trajectory slows down in terms of inflation, then we're going to have to be more patient than i think many have expected. >> have expected. >> raphael, i want to come back to this productivity story, but i want to do nuts and bolts fed story. you said you've pulled back when, but are you thinking just one rate cut this year? >> that's where i was probably 6 to 8 months ago, and the strong performance to the economy at the end of 2023 caused me to think, well, maybe things are actually going to be moving in a way so that we can move sooner. i've actually gone back to where i was before, because we've seen inflation kind of become much more bumpy in its trajectory, and it just says to me that we're just going to have to

watch and wait and see how things evolve. >> so, if it's one cut, do you care to share with the audience here when you might think of doing that one cut? >> so, sure, i'm happy to do that. look, if the economy evolves as i expect, and that's going to be seeing continued robustness in gdp and employment, and a slow decline of inflation through the course of the year, i think it will be appropriate for us to do -- start moving down at the end of this year, the fourth quarter, as -- and we'll have to see whether the data come on. my outlook right now is that inflation is really going to drop incrementally through the course of 2024, and that incremental progress will continue into 2025, and we won't get to our 2% target until sometime in early 2026. so, with that outlook, i think

we have time to be patient, and we can just watch the economy and see if that's how things actually play out. >> so, you're confirming what i suspected of you all along, which is i would not have wanted to be a student in one of your classes because the bar was so high for success. some of your colleagues only want to see a couple more months of success, but you want to see what amounts to almost half a year. why are you more hawkish on this issue? >> you'll have to ask others why they feel they're where they are, but to me, i think there are two things going on here. one, the road is going to be bumpy, and i think if you looked over the last several months, inflation hasn't moved very much, relative to where we were at the end of 2023. and if we continue on that pace, that's something we got to keep an eye on. the second thing i would say is there are some secondary measures in the inflation numbers that got me a bit concerned that things may move even slower. if you look at the share of goods in the market basket for

mainly the cpi but the qc as well, the number -- the percentage of those goods that have inflation that's growing up higher than 3% and higher than 5%, those are much higher now than they were before, and they're starting to trend back to what we saw in the high-inflation period. they're moving away from what we'd like to see. i got to make sure that those aren't hiding some extra upward pricing pressure before i'm going to want to move our policy rate. >> let me ask you the same question from the complete other side. unemployment below 4%, gdp running above trend, according to all the best forecasts that are out there, why cut at all? it seems like the economy -- does it seem to you as if the economy is doing just fine at the current rate, and the current rate may not be that restrictive? >> well, there's a lot of debate right now about how restrictive our rate is, but what i would

say is this. i actually agree with you. an economy that's growing strong, that's creating a lot of jobs, that's putting americans to work and getting them salaries, those are good things, and i'm not in a rush to try to disrupt that dynamic as long as inflation is moving closer to our target. and so it's that dual picture which really informs how i'm viewing what an appropriate policy path is, and it's one reason why i'm willing to be quite patient here. the one caveat would be that if employment starts to degrade, then we're going to have -- then i have to take that on board, but i'm not getting reports about that from anybody that i talk to outside of highly interest rate sectors like mortgages and realtors. >> president, professor bostic, so good to talk to you this morning. i'll speak for my colleagues and say that we'll appreciate the next time you'll be around the table with joe and andrew and

becky and myself, and we'll have a longer conversation. in the meantime, thank you very much. >> your time. >> given what just happened this morning, i need to become an engineer as well, and i'll be happy to be there in-person. >> great. joe, back to you at the nasdaq and hq. >> good. thanks, steve. next, we're going to talk markets and get you ready for the trading day eaahd. "squawk on "squawk box" will be right back. ...for the championship! nice shot, marcus! sweet, turn simulation off. tssk, tssk, not so fast. what, why? did you forget marcus? forget what? your chem exam? uggh? flashcard time! the atomic weight of boron. the future isn't scary, not investing in it is. 100 innovative companies, one etf. before investing, carefully read and consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges expenses and more in prospectus at invesco.com.

all right, welcome back. joining us is cliff corso, president and chief investment officer at advisors asset management, where they have $41.4 billion in assets under management. cliff, let's talk about what we just heard from raphael bostic. pretty important member of the fed. voicing some opinions about this. we've seen the numbers come in better than anticipated on several economic fronts, whether that be manufacturing numbers or just today the adp number showing a stronger than anticipated jobs report. he seems to think that the economy's not necessarily speeding up again. what do you think? >> well, i'm not so sure about that. i think three key takeaways i

took from the fed governor there was, one, it's going to be a bumpy road in trying to get to that 2%. two, he believes we'll see inflation come down. we're not so sure. and three, he laid out a pretty long-term time frame, 2026, for the policy to work to get down to that last mile of 2% inflation. what i would say is i think our opinion lines more with bostic than others on the fed, because it seems he's more realtime data dependent, realtime, as opposed to trying to figure out where the puck is sliding before the puck has been hit. >> what's your view on the markets right now? we don't have a lot of time because we had issues with that interview, but what is your take on the markets right now? what do you do? >> sure. i think you stay in the market but look to the leadership change we've just seen. i think rates will stay high. one thing i think the market

doesn't appreciate is even if the fed lowers rates, the long end may not follow. it may drift up. if it's creating more ease in a strong economy. so, stick with value, stick with margin of safety, diversify the portfolio, and still stay cautious on long duration equities and fixed income. >> cliff, i wish we had more time. we will have you back again. sorry for the technical difficulties, but we appreciate seeing you today. that does it for us today. join us tomorrow. right now, it's time for "squawk on the street." good wednesday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber at post nine of the new york stock exchange. futures are red. adp comes in the second hot number of the week. powell speaks at noon. bostic on "squawk" just now reiterating one cut this year. the dow and the s&p coming off the worst day in about a month. you're going to hear