tv Squawk Box CNBC April 8, 2024 6:00am-9:00am EDT
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it is monday, april 8th, 2024 and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin. joe is out today. it is monday morning. we have a big week this week. we are looking for inflation data. watching that quickly. if you are looking at the u.s. equities, you will see modest declines. dow futures off 20 points. s&p futures down 5. you have the nasdaq off by 2 points. this comes after stocks rose on friday. it wasn't enough to save the dow. the dow saw the worst weekly performance since 2023.
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dow was down 2.25%. if you look at what has been happening with treasury yields, this is the question. will the fed cut and by how much -- the question is when. the ten-year note at 4.44. we have seen yields push up. i think traders are actually betting that two rate cuts are more likely this year. just seeing that in the fed futures at this point. we get inflation data this week with the cpi. that is key. last week, we were talking about the jobs report and people were saying the inflation numbers are more important. the jobs number is big. >> we will talk to mohamed el-erian about the topic later. and breaking news. the biden administration announcing funding from the chips act. taiwan semiconductor is giving $6 billion in grants and $5
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billion this loans for the factory in phoenix and then a third was announced. gina raimondo will be on "squawk on the street" to talk about the chips act and the award at 9:30 a.m. eastern. that is good news for taiwan semiconductor and good news for america. not as good news for folks like intel and others that wanted access to the chip awards. >> it is important we have production in the united states. the idea of it being in phoenix is huge. 80% of those chips produced in taiwan. that is a dicey situation. we saw how concerning it is to have too much of your supply chain located in one place in the pandemic. this will be a change that brings about needed production in the united states. >> a foreign ally, but competitor. would you prefer to have it owned by an american company? do we have the resources to do
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it? >> that's the issue. >> that's part of the problem. >> ultimately, would you prefer it be made by u.s. suppliers? yes. the important thing is it is produced here and they have the know how. i'm sure there will be a lot of debate about the award. treasury secretary janet yellen janet yewrapping up her whine. she spoke to cnbc's sara eisen. >> it shows the u.s. is firing on all cylinders. inflation is coming down. the job market is very strong. growth is really a lot stronger than i would have expected at this stage. we had 3.1% growth last year. inflation is coming down. labor supply is up. >> comments on a strong economy. sara will join us at 6:30 a.m. eastern with more of the
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interview. >> interested to hear what she has to say after all of this and the reports with the information from the press conference and how much tension and distrust there has been this weekend with the meetings. i don't know that is the case. >> she started the comments in the press conference with the idea that things have gotten better over the last year. it will be interesting to hear what sara thinks. >> i think what janet yellen is saying, i'm sure, she feels genuinely about that. the other reports and reporters who seem to be writing about this seem to think things have been more compliccomplicated. talking about complicated. in brazil yesterday, the supreme court judge opened an inquiry into elon musk after the owner of x said he would reactivate accounts on the platform that the judge ordered blocked. musk said he would lift all the judge's restrictions because
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they were unconstitutional and called on the judge to resign. neither side recalled the issues that were blocked. they are accusing fake news and hate helps ackmessages. musk said this judge applied massive fines and threatened to arrest employees and cut our access to x in brazil. as a result, we will probably lose all revenue in brazil and have to shut our offices there. principles matter more than profit. musk vowed that x would publish all of the judge's demands. i want to say one of the things that is interesting about this and i applaud him for doing this. however, you know, there have been times where he said we will follow the local law. whatever the local law is, we will do. in america, we will fight for free speech, but in other countries, we will not fight for free speech. this question has come up time and time again.
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i asked him this question about china. if bad things are happening in china, will with you do something about it? the answer is we will follow the local law. he has a lot of business in ch china. >> tesla. >> tesla and other things. if the judge in china said we don't like what are you doing, it seems you would hear him say we will follow the local law. in brazil, where i imagine there is less business to be had, he is taking a principled stand. that's all i have to say. nothing else needs to be said. >> probably right. >> the way of the world. in other musk news, the tesla ceo saying the company will reveal the robo taxi product on august 88th. he posted that tesla scrapped plans for the low-cost electric car. musk accused reuters of lying
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without specifying details of the story. if you look at what the judge did, it is a problem. you could argue that maybe there was a case in the country where he believes the laws are in place to allow him to keep these people on the platform. the judge is making the wrong decision. maybe, you know, i can go back and forth on this. we're still in musk land. in a.i., investors close to musk are in talks to help xa.i. to raise $3 billion. among the backers is gigafund and the board member of spacex. the reports were denied about raising additional money for xa.i. take it for what it is. >> by the way, we will speak
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with ron baron. he will join us on thursday this week. we will talk about all of these issues with him at that point. >> yeah. the faa is launching an investigation after the engine cowling -- cowling? oh, cowling, the cover of the southwest airlines plane fell off during takeoff in denver and struck the wing flaps. the cowling is the protective cover, like the hood over the car. workers can open it and work inside of it. the boeing 737-800 plane returned to the airport for maintenance. shares of southwest this morning are down 1%. boeing shares are off 1%.
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united airlines is postponing the investor day amid the faa review of the compliance with the safety regulations after a series of incidents there. united said it would simply send the wrong message to the team to have an exciting investor day focused on financial results. among the incidents in the last two months, the plane landed in oregon with the missing external panel, plane rolled off the houston runway into the grass and plane diverted after losing a tire in san francisco. all of those occurred on boeing planes, but people are pointing to maintenance for those issues. the investigation is still ongoing. when . when we come can back, we will talk to tom lee about the fed and the outlook and much more. and later, snapchat is making changes after the back bla
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backlash on the report of teens' mental health. that and much more when "squawk box" comes back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com. (grunting) at morgan stanley, old school hard work meets bold new thinking. (laughter) at 88 years old, we still see the world with the wonder of new eyes, helping you discover untapped possibilities and relentlessly working with you to make them real. old school grit. new world ideas. morgan stanley.
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tom lee. he is the global advisors managing partner and cnbc contributor. tom, we are sitting very near all-time highs. yet, it does feel like there is some nervous nness in the marke at this point. a lot of this is coming from hotter than expected inflation numbers and stronger than expected jobs reports and moving num manufacturing ism. that has people wondering if the fed will cut rates. areunnerved by this? >> i think, becky, this wednesday will answer a lot of questions. you summed it up well. can the fed be in the position to reduce real rates if we have good economic growth? this coming wednesday is the march cpi. it will be the first clean cpi report of the year.
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it won't have any residual se seasonality. we expect it to be a good report. lower than expected inflation. it will help investors get to the place where we can have good growth in the economy and there is slack in the labor markets. inflation is falling fast enough to cut rates this year. >> i know you have been telling people to buy on the dip. not that there is much of a dip. does it matter if the fed cuts rates? earnings are strong enough. is that enough to justify valuations at this point? >> i think the fed being supportive of the economy and managing the business cycle is the most important thing. in the last two years, the fed was fighting inflation and hawkish. that was tough for equities. if we are in a mode where the fed doesn't know how many cuts it needs to make, but supports
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the business cycle, that is good for stocks. you don't need three rate cuts. you could have a good scenario with the fed only cutting once. if the fed is in a position where they feel the need to raise interest rates, that is bad for stocks. >> tom, hold on just a moment. we have breaking news. we would like to get your reaction. if you don't mind listening. >> we have news crossing this moment. jamie dimon's jpmorgan chase is publishing his annual letter to shareholders. we want to bring you the news in the letter. highly watched letter annually. dimon writes the following. he says despite the unsettling landscape, war in the middle east and ukraine, growing geopolitical tensions in it china and polar 00ed here in the united states, he believes it is resilient and the market is pricing in a 70% to 80% chance
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of soft landing. dimon thinks the usual you is lower. citing ongoing fiscal spending and remilitarization of the world and the global trade and the green economy. another issue is artificial intelligence. dimon writing the consequences will be extraordinary. he says jpmorgan chase has grown the a.i. organization materially with more than 2,000 machine learning experts or data scientists on the payroll. dimon issuing a warning. we may be entering the proper treacherous geopolitical eras since world war ii. he is concerned about the large deficit supported by kwaun
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tayl kwa quan quantative easing. he said this may be creating rfk to eclipse anything since world war ii. we should not take them lightly. >> it is interesting. jamie dimon is somebody who has been fairly optimistic about the united states and the economy. his concern about the geopolitical events is one echoed by other people who are optimistic if you talk to warren buffett. >> the letter is optimistic. we just hit on what i would describe as the news piece in the tonally, he is talking about a.i. this is 20 years since the bank won the jpmorgan chase which put him in charge of the company. the largest bank in the country,
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market cap wise. it goes to other pieces to it. it is a worthy read. >> there are a few ceos who actually write their own letters without worrying about lawyers and other people going through it and reading it and telling them what they can and can't say and writing it for them. jamie dimon, obviously, a huge one. warren buffett, jeff bezos wrote a very straight forward letter that you could tell was written by him with their voices. larry fink's letter was up there with the parents at the top of the letter. that's why these letters are so interesting. the tone in the markets is consistent for the last year. that is the important about the soft landing not necessarily being ascert certain as the mar expectation. >> tom has been the bull. tom, what do you think?
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>> um, i think jamie is doing his shareholders justice because they want to hear from him about all of the concerns out there. i think he does a great job of detailing all of the things that can go wrong. at the end up of the day, when it comes to markets, i think markets tend to price concerns quickly. i think that's really the concern for the last two years. that hard landing. now inflation pressure are easing at a time when consumers don't have a lot of leverage and $6 trillion of cash on the sidelines. inflation, we don't know how quickly it will fall. our bet is it will fall quickly. that means some of the concerns of hard landing is because of sticky inflation. we will have a good economy. >> is this a two-pronged outlook on the economy and the markets, tom? is flag the one big issue? if wednesday proves it is a hotter than anticipated or
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expected cpi, would you change your ideas about what that means for both of those things for the year? >> that's right. i think if inflation -- march is the first clean cpi report. we know they have come in soft and better than expected. if it is higher than expected, it raises the question that inflation is stubborn and getting from 3% to 2% is difficult. if it is a soft report and favored below 3%, that is the consensus. that will change minds that inflation may not be stubborn. >> you have been telling people to buy. you have been buying on any dips. we're not talking 5% drop, but 2% drop and you are buying into the market? >> that's right. there are many reasons there is
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gas in the tank in the rally. part of it is we think the inflation trajectory is on a glide path lower than consensus. the second is there is too much caution out there. when you look at prime brokerage borrowing, it is below october of 2021. there is still cash on the slide s sidelines. as long as investors are top calling and allooking at the wod as half empty, they can arrely the wall of worry. >> tom, that's a bold call. this is a big deal. we are trying to be data dependent and figure out where inflation is headed. what makes you think the market is lower than necessary or some of those who are concerned about the market are raising issues? what do you look to in terms of your expectations and read on
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inflation? >> i think it really comes down to two basic frameworks. number one is we look at year over year core cpi at 2.4 is where it was at average before the pandemic. it is 3.8 now. of that, 1.8 points is shelter and auto insurance. shelter is statistically going to start to actually ease this year because of the catch up. auto insurance is also statistically going to ease because it is a catch up. core inflation without auto insurance and housing is below the fed target. the second issue is january and february tend to suffer from both statistical and rezsidual sea seasonality. that will disappear in march.
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we will get our answer on wednesday. i think it will look quite good. >> a lot anticipation. thank you, tom. >> thank you. coming up on other side. south carolina sending cloaitli clark home without an ncaa title. we will talk college hoops in an moment. l l later, we talk to mohamed el-erian about his outlook for the fed. so much more on "squawk box." we will head to china to get latest on janet yellen's etg. sara eisen is on the ground. we will talk to her in just moments as well. you know what's brilliant?
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nasdaq off 10. we have a lot happening. we're going to be checking out where things stand in the treasury markets in a bit. you see it there. the futures overnight as you were watching the south carolina basketball team capping the perfect season. gamecocks defeating hawkeyes 87-75 making history. perfect season for them. in the meantime, caitlin clark ending her record-breaking career without an ncaa title. she is the presumptive top pick in the wnba draft. an mak amazing conversation. and then in the men's, uconn is
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the favorite to repeat and champions. we have the founder of collect media with us. it is officially launching today covering the $500 billion collectible and memorabilia market. >> a long-time friend and former colleague of the show for a very long time. >> if fact, darren and i see each other. we run through each other at rutgers and northwestern games. i follow you closely on instagram. this is exciting. you have been a collector your entire life. you know everything about sports. this is a phenomenal run to watch what is happening to women's basketball thanks to caitlin clark. >> it is unbelievable. even on the collectible side. hyvee launched cereal with caitlin clark. it costs double frosted flakes. they were $50. $75,000 card. she has worn six jerseys all
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year. our site has that today. one was given away. there has been a $500,000 offer for another one of them. we have never seen this in terms of the interest. >> let's talk about collectibles. we have people talking about the sports aspect. you are launching a media company to coverage colle collectibles. it somethis something you have doing your life. >> it is legit. i have 20% of my money in collectibles. it is something that has tremendous arbitrage in it. it is nascent. maybe it is the bottom of the third inning. all of the grading and things where people don't know what they he have and talking about it could be great for buyers and sellers. >> why is this exploding like
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this? >> i think in covid, people found being alone and they found comfort in something that was back to their childhood. a nintendo game. someone has it unused and it is graded and now worth $100,000. i had the e-bay package. don't use the e-bay tape. the wife is upset about that showing up at the door. that's what happened. now people are like this is going to be a permanent part of my life because i can enjoy it and make money. there's not a lot of things like that. >> can i say i think you are probably right. let's poke at that theory. during covid, we had a lot of extra cash. the markets took off. you saw the gamification of the markets. is this a passing fad if people don't have as much spare cash sitting aside? >> bad business people are bad at business. there will be losers. you have to be smart about how
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you think about things. it is not just -- stop me. >> i'm not stopping you. the question is this is not a fad, but interesting how the value goes up and down? >> some do. >> it is not lineal with the distance of the time period of the moment. i was talking about the michael jordan rookie card i have which is 1986 that on the grading scale and time period. it has gone up and down in value. >> as high as $738,000 at psa-10. then 324. it goes down to $160,000. >> the last dance phenomenon. >> it depends. a lot of people play this game as if it is fantasy basketball. if luca doncic has a lot of
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points, my card goes up. there are a million factors. if young kids are collecting doncic and don't have the same wherewithal to resist change, that thing is going down and i'll go down with the ship. >> i also happily own topps 19811981 lard larry bird and magic johnson on the same card. younger people don't have the same appetite for dr. j. and magic johnson and larry bird. >> or more people have found that card in the shoe box. i always pay attention to populations. now these graders, not only are they grading it for you, but tell you how many. i know how many they have graded. there are 324 michael jordans that are psa near perfect. they graded 48,000 of the air
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jordans. that's why i try to collect one of one. i have the best in the world of john hancock and thomas edison. it doesn't go down. >> is that the best in the world? >> show us what you got. >> this is the best. is this the right camera? this is the best in the world alexander hamilton. a guy named mr. william bell got bad salt in the harbor. he said i don't want to pay taxes. hamilton said he didn't have enough information to rule on it. >> this is graded? >> this is graded nine out of ten. it is from 1790. i have confirmation this is the highest grading. >> i'm fascinated. >> this is one of the reasons why i'm starting this. there is such a pain point. during covid, i had people every day saying what do i have here? i don't have time. let me teach you what you need
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to do. >> this is the thing i don't understand with the grading. you have a signature from steve jobs there. >> yes. >> how do we know and i'm not truly questioning it, but how do we know this is steve jobs' signature? how do the graders know i have this fabulous, i think, thing signed by the chicago bulls the second year they were champions. i know it is real, but i never got it graded. >> 1991-1992 season. >> how would anybody know? is it really their signature or did the ball boys all go around and sign for everybody? this is the question. >> from 1987 to 1990, i wrote to michael jordan at chicago stadium. i got 14 signatures back. three years ago, i sent to the graders. they came back secretarial. they burst my bubble. you have to rely on people.
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it is con jectureconjecture. you have to rely on people to say it is real. do they get it wrong? dw yes. >> i like they call it secretarial. that is a euphemism for not. >> secretarial for how old i am. >> we have to go to break. >> we have warren buffett with eight bills signed. you have this. >> what is warren buffett worth? >> $6,000. i think we have the close-up picture. his woodrow wilson. the most amazing thing. it says loves mafth. future stockbroker. >> his high school yearbook? >> yeah. >> they got that right. >> he got that right. >> darren, it is amazing. you are right across the street. we hope to see more of you. i think this is really a
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burgb burgeoning industry. >> people can go to colle collect.comnovell. thank you. coming up, more of our interview with treasury sara eisen is live in beijing this morning. we will talk to her next. maybe t reaching a magic number... and more about discovering magic. rich is being able to keep your loved ones close. and also send them away. rich is living life your way. and having someone who can help you get there. the key to being rich is knowing what counts. encore energy, america's clean energy company, now in production in south texas. energizing america with reliable and affordable uranium
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welcome back to "squawk box." janet yellen is winding down her visit to china. we have sara eisen with the latest with her interview with janet yellen. >> reporter: sandrew, janet yellen is wrapping up four full days in china. she spent the first few days in the south in the manufacturing hub. over the weekend and monday here in beijing where she met with government officials. highest ranking official she met was with premier li. she met with local officials, including the mayor of beijing and she met with beijing students. a lot of respect with her warm welcome with her economics
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background. she delivered two tough messages. one was on the overcapacity concern that the u.s. has that china is flooding the world with cheap exports of evs and solar panels that they are subsidizing and also on a matter of national security where she warned china and other countries there will be consequences if they fuel russia's war machine. i asked her if we are looking at sanctions for china coming. here's what she said. >> it's not only chinese comp companies. we would keep any financial institution, particularly, that facilitated trade in dual use goods or strictly military goods in violation of our sanctions and aiding russia's military and we would consider sanctioning.
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the president issued a recent executive order that would enable treasury to impose sanctions on financial institutions that are found to be doing this in the systematic way. we've not used this tool yet, but it is one that would be available and would i try to make clear is that we stand ready to act if we see significant violations by financial institutions especially. >> in whchina? >> in other countries as well. >> what about the chinese government and its support of russia? >> well, china is entitled to have a relationship with russia. what we have made clear is that it is unacceptable to us for china to support russia militarily and doesn't say that
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china can't have a relationship with russia. china and russia do a lot of trade and much of it is unproblematic. anything that involves aiding ru russia's military in the brutal war against ukraine is unacceptable to us and we have the ability to sanction it. >> should american companies be reducing their exposure to china on the manufacturing basis? >> look, i think trade and investment between china and the united states is valuavaluable. many american companies are doing excellent business in china. they have been here for a long time. the same is true of chinese companies in the united states. this trade is beneficial. the great majority of it is uncontroversial.
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we should not do anything to impede that trading and investment relationship, but in the areas where we have national security concerns as we have demonstrated, we stand ready to act to protect our national security. that may mean export controls or our other interventions. we try to target those narrowly so that they don't very broad based impact on china's economy as a whole. we feel strongly and have agreed with the chinese that we need a level playing field. now, when we interfere when we have regulations that affect our trade in investment with china, if it is national security or other reasons, we go through an open and transparent rule writing process. we put out proposed regulations
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and accept comments. the chinese have the opportunity to comment. we take the input and we write regulations and it's very clear what we're doing. in china's case, often the support, we believe there, may be a lot of support in ways that are not transparent and that really is a meaningful difference. we are not trying to stifle trade and investment broadly speaking. i would not want to advise american firms don't do business in china. >> if i'm tim cook of apple and looking at the political concerns, won't that trump the economic relationship? >> the purpose of the dialogue that i've been involved with now for well over a year with our chinese counterparts is intended to make sure that does not happen. that we don't have an unintended escalation of tensions and we
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understand one another's red lines. we avoid misunderstandings and we preserve economic interactions that are beneficial to both sides. we manage our relationship and we need to manage it responsibly so both sides can continue to benefit. >> you put a lot of work into this and you said in the conference this afternoon that the relationship is in a better place than it was a year ago. >> deaffindefinitely. >> do you worry about the relationship in one year from now if president trump gets reelected? >> i don't want to get into politics. i'm governed by the hatch act. >> reporter: she clearly would not go there on trump. it is something to think about as the former president has threatened as much as 60% tariffs against china. she did not go there in terms of
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threatening tariffs even on the overcapacity issue. she said they were on the table, but wasn't dangling that at all. if you hear her, she is not trying to decouple. i have to say, she is front page news. today and every day this weekend, it is a huge deal over here. the coverage has been mostly friendly about the interactions and clearing key economic issues discussed as janet yellen visits. andrew, she made a lot of time for important culture visits while here. she had a private tour last night of the forbidden city. right near taiananmen square.
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she is all over social media. her nickname here is yellen nainai. that means yellen grandma. she is really trying to keep the economics here separate over the confrontational national security concerns. >> sara, i'm curious on the ground. she did not want to step into the political realm, but what is your sense of the political realm with the politic during the election year. what do you think? >> increasingly anti-american sentiment. no question about it. that is the sense from talking to folks here. we pick it up on social media. we monitored it throughout her visit here. even on the editorials and the state media and calling the criticism of overcapacity
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xenophobic. it was more on the politics over the u.s. and china. you know, they did in the conversations bring up the chinese issues and concerns with tiktok and legislation going through congress, andrew. the concern is that on the chinese part that the u.s. is using national security as a way to target chinese business and chinese companies from succeeding in places like the u.s. that is the view here. the u.s. is going after and trying to block competition from chinese evs and chinese social media. they are doing it in the name of national security. she took a lot of questions from the chinese side on that front. that's what you get when you talk to people as well. it is political s. they are using the issues to demonize china. we hear it on both sides of the
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told you about last week, snapchat is adjusting a ranking feature for paid subscribers that shows just how close you are to your snapchat friends by displaying your position in what they call their solar system. this feature that basically says are you mercury? because you're the person who's chatting back and forth and messaging back and forth the most with this person, or are you uranus because you're the planet that is out in the coldest regions of the solar system, you're not that actively eng engaged with them. it was criticized after "the wall street journal" reported on teen's anxiety. snapchat will turn it off by default and users will haveto opt into it if they choose to use it. before this it was the default that kicked in. i don't think this is a huge response. i think this is a way to say you're doing something without really doing something. it's a popularity feature that makes all these kids feel bad about themselves.
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we have seen the research on teens and the depression levels. a lot of that tied back to social media. if you actually want to do something about it, you should change it so you're not ranking and making them -- let's face it -- >> i thought you were going to praise them for this. >> turned off the default and made it so it's not the default, but you've already got everybody keyed into it. tell me that this is not a way to try and get kids to use the app more frequently. if you get to rank higher based on how often you're snapping back and forth with them, it's like the complete gamification. it's a way to try and make sure you are keeping these kids using this app more and more frequently, which of course they want to do as a business but you're doing it at the expense of these teens' health. it's a lousy. all these popularity features are lousy features and you're jerks for doing it. this is a way of doing it without doing it. it's not the default. any of those kids you didn't introduce this to aren't going to go in and flip the switch because they're already using
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this. >> i would bet the majority of users do not use this, because it's not the default won't be able to use it, they just won't do it. >> i doubt it. >> when we come back, veteran media executive tom rogers is sounding the alarm about the loss of local news stations as more and more people cut the cord. we've got that story right after this break. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business. next level moments need the next level network. copy that. make a hard left down the alley. network's got you covered. [please confirm requesting back-up.] -changing route. -go. roadblock ahead. ...back up, back up... reverse! reverse! next level moments, we're 30 seconds out. need the next level network. [north corridor, hurry!] -coming through! -or 3, let's go. the network more businesses choose. transplant received. at&t business.
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just stop calling each other rock stars. and using workday to put finance and h.r. on one platform. tim, you are a rock star. using responsible ai doesn't make you a rock star. it kinda does. you are not rock stars. (clears throat) okay. most of you are not rock stars. oooh. data driven insights, and large language models. oh, that's so rock roll. it is, right. he gets it. yeah.
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the transition from traditional television to streaming service has led to a major cord cutting across the country, but overshadowing the impact is the impact on local television stations and the decline in local news coverage. more and more of the closure of local newspapers as well. joining us is tom rogers, news week editor at large, executive chairman, former nbc cable
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president, cnbc contributor, too many titles. he argues more action needs to be taken to ensure the survival of local news in the u.s. and thinks that streaming should be a part of it. tom, you want to make the argument? >> sure, thanks for having me, andrew. you and i have talked ad nauseam about the streaming wars and its impact on entertainment and sportds. its impact on local stations doesn't get talked about very much, but when people cut the cord, they are effectively dropping their local stations and the local news that comes from that, and that's a serious issue, particularly in light of the fact that newspapers, local newspapers are dwindling in this country. we've lost some 3,000 daily and weekly local newspapers in the last 20 years, and that's accelerating. we're losing about 2.5 on average local papers a week now, and we're down about 40 million homes in terms of local stations
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being able to be received in those homes. so a real issue here and when that happens, it's not only that the audience is lost, but the payments from cable and satellite operators to those local stations is lost, and that's the real economic hit. so the question is what do we do about it? >> right. i want to ask what to do about it. here's the thing i can't figure out. why does there seem to be a considerably smaller, if not infan decimal audience for local news in those markets? obviously the markets are smaller than a national audience, but oddly enough, you have local folk who is don't seem to gravitate towards local news even when it is in front of them in this era. why is that? >> well, local news still has its audience. the people still connected to the cord tend to be oldest viewers, and as a result local news tends to have a somewhat
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older audience. but when it comes to local sports, when it comes to local weather, obviously all kinds of other local stories, that's the primary viewing audience. its audience has been dwindling over time, but in terms of political candidates needing to reach a local audience during elections, being able to buy tame on those stations is still critical, and all kinds of local public affairs stories are still captured in those local stations, and you're right, aud audience has dwindled, but it's still meaningful. >> tom, for the cable rules, when i was an intern in congress i worked on the syndicated exclusivity laws which were these congressmen who were in local districts outside of big cities where they were mad that they weren't getting coverage of the things they were doing back in their district, so they passed the syndicated exclusivity laws which forced these cable companies to do it.
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do you anticipate washington could take a similar move with new media and try and say, hey, you have to have a space for local coverage? and again, it was politics because these congressional leaders were upset that they weren't getting coverage for the things they were doing back this their districts. >> right, well, the fcc really hasn't pressed this issue. of course, broadcast stations are licensed by the fcc, and that gives them a license to broadcast over the air, which does reach an entire market, and before the cable era going back 40 years ago, everybody had antennas, and it was meaningful to have that over the air reach. with the cable era and people getting their local signals through cable and satellite, that changed. what's really interesting and here's where the fcc could have some impact, antenna sales are back up, about 8 million over the air antennas were sold last year, and they've changed. they've much smaller. they've much cheaper. they fit in a window, they cost
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on average about $25, and so the ability to re-create that over the air is possible. the issue is that you got to get the antennas out there, one, and two, very importantly you can't have the stations in never never land when it comes to people turning on their tv. they have to be in the same user interface as your netflix, as your disney plus. they've got to be sitting right there. the paramount pluses of the world, the peacocks of the world do make room within their apps for local station news coverage, but most people don't turn to those apps for that, and many, many households in any given local market don't have those apps. so the question is what could happen so that you get the antennas out there and the user interface could make room for theation stations in the same interface as netflix. the answer to that is a new alliance between cable operators and local stations, which
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traditionally there's been a lot of friction towards. now cable is facing broadband competition, competition for its internet service, and it would be interesting in my mind, particularly comcast, the parent of this network and charter, which have come up with their own interface for viewers called zumo, and you can personalize what you get in that interface. if those cable companies were putting in the antennas as part of their broadband services, allowing ui to coexist for tv stations and in return local stations promote the broadband service now that there's that real competition cable operators are facing, and in return for that, getting a promotion fee of some kind for the advertising they do, which could in part replace the fees today that those local stations get from the cable satellite bundle. so i think it calls for really a new industry alliance of some kind for the common interests of cable local stations to try to
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solve this, something that the fcc just is not pressing. >> it's an important thought and we appreciate you bringing it to us this morning as always, we love talking to you, and i'm sure we will continue this dialogue and debate very, very soon. so thank you very, very much. we're going to continue the broadcast now. we've surpassed or passed 7:00 p.m., usually -- or 7:00 a.m. rather, see what time it is here, on the east coast now, and we are going to reset here. you are watching of course "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin, becky quick is here, joe is off this morning. u.s. equity futures at this hour, 31 points up on the dow, nasdaq with an open 15 points higher. the s&p 500 up about a point and a half. take a look at treasuries. we're going to have a conversation with mohamed el-erian about inflation and where things stand. the ten-year note sitting at 4.448, the two-year at 4.780. treasury secretary janet yellen sitting down with our
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sara eisen in an exclusive interview. here's what she said about our nation's economy and inflation. >> the fed hass indicated that they want to make sure that inflation's really coming down and that they're obviously considering rate cuts that would be appropriate when they reach that judgment. and with that generally good news on inflation, you know, let's look at the data. i believe inflation will continue to come down. >> we'll get another read on inflation on wednesday when we get the cpi number. a lot of people including tom lee earlier this morning pointing out how important that number is going to be. we will have more of that interview with janet yellen at 8:20 a.m. eastern time. the fed has lost sight of its overall strategies, instead turned into a play by play commentator. he expects the fed to cut rates twice this year. for more on that and his take on the treasury secretary sitting at the same chair that joe
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kernen sits but always this time i think with a different opinion. mohamed el-erian is here, president of queens college at cambridge university. play-by-play commentator, that's kind of harsh. you're not usually like that. >> well, it's because of the amount of volatility in the marketplace. the fed should be the strategic anchor to this market and leave the play toplay commentary to others. what we found with 19 federal officials speaking, we have -- they've become a play-by-play commentator, and we saw last week what that does to market. it imposes an unnecessary amount of volatility onto it. >> that's because we feel like we're at an inflection point, right? it's one thing for everybody to be talking when we kind of know the direction of things but i think everybody's looking for any cue anywhere to try and figure out what the fed will do next because it's unclear. >> yeah, there's a couple of things going on. one, i think the wholenotion of transparency is being implemented in the wrong way.
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i'm all for transparency, but it has to be in a way that fulfills theobjectives of -- >> transparency but nobody's allowed to talk? >> talk, but talk with a longer term view, don't talk on every single change, and the other thing, this fed unfortunately has become excessively data dependent, and when you become excess i excessively data dependent, you should be swung around. >> shouldn't you be dependent on the data? shouldn't that be the whole game? >> high frequency data tends to be incredibly noisy. the image you have is of a roller coaster, the market, the data, the fed has two choices, get on the roller coaster or stay on the side and try to provide the anchor. >> your argument is that they should do nothing right now and kind of wait it out and see where the data heads? >> if you take a strategic view of the economy, they should definitely cut twice. if you are overly data
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dependent, you're going to be taken to a place where you may end up not cutting, and that's going to be the difference. if you don't cut, that may unnecessarily undermine u.s. economic -- >> let me read you, this is jamie dimon's letter, it came out this morning. he says many economic indicators today continue to be good and possibly improving including inflation. when looking ahead to tomorrow, conditions that will affect the future should be considered. for example, there seems to be a large number of persistent inflationary pressures, which may likely continue all of the following factors appear to be inflationary. ongoing fiscal spending, remilitarization of the world, restructure of global trade. capital needs and the new green economy and possibly higher energy costs in the future, even though there currently is the oversupply of gas and plentiful spare capacity of oil due to the lack of needing investment in the energy infrastructure. what do you make of that? >> i think jamie dimon is absolutely right. i think that the last mile,
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so-called in the inflation battle is going to prove much more difficult than most market participants expect because of the reasons he cited. we live now in a world where the supply side is a problem, not the demand side. the big debate is does that mean the fed should pursue a 2% inflation regardless of the change in the global macro pair d paradigm or it should be tolerating slightly above 2% in order not to sacrifice the economy. >> you do no cuts, what happens to the economy? ask by the way, there's the economy but then there's the impact that all of this government debt we're going to have is going to ultimately have on the economy. >> there's a huge structural reform issuewe don't talk about enough. we are too focused on the fed and our inflation. >> what i'm saying should the fed be even thinking about the fiscal issue, which is to say that the cost of our debt is going to become a problem very soon if it isn't already. >> if they start thinking about
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that, then they're basically enabling the fiscal authorities to continue to do dbe doing tha >> they shouldn't be thinking about it, whether they do or not, i don't know. they shouldn't be thinking about it. what they should be thinking about is the dual mandate and what is the right inflation target or if you want to be sort of more diplomatic, when do you want to get to 2%. do we kneneed to get to 2% quic or over the medium term. whenever they talk about 2%, they says longer term b objective of. >> larry summers has been critical too. he is saying they shouldn't do anything right now because we can't even decide on what a neutral rate is. i just heard him saying that if you don't know what the neutral rate is, that's like driving a car and not knowing what your speedometer says, you know. you just don't know how fast this economy should be running at this point, and that's a reason for doing nothing. >> larry reacted quite violently
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to the comments of chair powell last week. >> yeah. >> when chair powell said we don't know where our start is and larry's point, which is correct, well, you better have some view as to where our start is. again, that is an illustration of a fed that's too data dependent, that is not looking at the strategic -- of course you have to have a view of where our start is. that's so critical to your path. >> mohammed. we're out of time. i would love to spend more time. >> thank you for having me. >> i'm digging that tie. i don't know why i'm digging that tie. >> must be i'm sitting in joe's seat. that's why. >> thanks. we're going to talk to commissioner about wnba about the prospects of caitlin clark. "squawk box" will be right back.
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welcome back to "squawk box," spirit airlines announced it has reached an agreement with air bus to defer all aircraft on order that were scheduled to be delivered through next year at the end of 2026. the airline said the move will improve its liquidity position by $340 million oaf the next two years. spirit also saying that it plans to furlough about 260 pilots due to quality issues with engines made by supplier pratt & whitney. another airline furloughing or putting some of its employees on hold during what has been a very challenging period for hthe airline industry. in this case it's the engines. in the case of united, it's boeing we're seeing across the board. when we come back, what should be the bigger concern for the energy markets at this point?
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rising mideast tensions or a supply shortage from production cuts. dan yergen of s&p global is going to break this down with us. you're watching oil prices this morning. w wti is all the way up at 86.21. ers enn crsen the'be ainea ioil prices. we'll talk with him about why. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. have the bairddifference.com.
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oil prices coming off their recent highs as tensions in the middle east have eased slightly around israel withdrew more forces from southern gaza. geopolitical risks from the energy sector still remain and oil prices are elevated up by about 2 2%. joining us is dan yergen, s&p global vice chair and the author of the new map, energy, climate and the clash of nations. we are looking at a big increase in oil prices to the point where people are sitting up and paying attention. >> it's a tighter market and that's the fundamentals. on top of that is geopolitical risk. there's an easing today because of israeli troops, but what's hanging over it is after the israeli attack on the consulate in syria that killed the iranian revolutionary guards, iran has said that they're going to revenge. hezbollah says it's inevitable,
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so the question is is there going to be a more direct war between israel and iran? >> with oil prices at these levels, we're already hearing from places like airlines where, yo you know, that's going to start eating into profits. what level do you look at oil prices and say, okay, this is a game changer for the markets. >> i think it is in the low 90s. if there's an expectation of higher prices, it's also a problem for inflation in general, and it's a real problem if you're an incumbent running for re-election. >> excellent point, not much that can be done at this point, or is there? >> not much. they've used the strategic petroleum reserve. apparently from what we've read, the administration has asked the ukrainians not to continue to attack russian oil refineries. they don't want to see disruptions in the market. there do seem to be limited tools, and there's only so much a president can do. >> the administration is aware. >> the administration is very aware. >> dan, let's talk about some of the things that came out, i had
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never seen one of the issues that you guys kind of got to the bottom of, this idea that electricity demand in the united states is rising far more rapidly than we can possibly keep up with it. >> two years ago it was -- utilities thought they were dealing with flat demand, declining demand, and suddenly it's turned around and one example is that if you go back a year and a half ago in the earnings calls of electric utilities we noticed there were like three mentions of data centers. most recently there were 120 mentions, and it is electrification, even in northeast now, they said that the forecast from two years has now been doubled for what the br growth is. that's a challenge of how do you build and what do you build? >> it takes years and years and years and years to build out additional production, additional output for electricity. are we prepared for this?
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>> no, i don't think so. and there's permitting issues whether you're doing transmission lines, whether you're doing new plants. one thing this has given a boost to are the small reactors. that was the difference there. >> where? >> they could be next to a data center. data centers are what use the vast amount of electricity. >> how quickly could those be spun up though? >> what? >> both from a regulatory perspective a physical, how quickly can you build them? >> well, at this point, the nearest ones that i know about are by 2030 that they think they could do it. so there is absolutely that problem, and -- >> 2030 to get regulatory approval locally or federally, what's the other thing -- >> dow says they'll have one in operation in 2030, and one of the other things i noticed the sere ra week this year is the optimism around nuclear that we haven't seen before. >> is there still a not in my
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backyard issue with it, where it sounds like a great idea, build it somewhere else? >> there will be that question, and it goes back to what andrew said, clearly there will be permitting issues. the other thing is in terms of getting anything done in the united states, permitting is a really big problem. >> dan, last week we talked a little bit about evs and the battle between evs and hybrids. hybrids have been pretty fantastic because i think the difference is you have all the benefits of better fuel mileage, all of these things that are great for the economy -- >> i heard you last week talk about your personal experience of hybrids. >> i love it. it's great, i don't have to do anything differently. >> but it's very different if you look at china, 35% of new cars are evs. europe, 24%. although in germany, take away the sub sidisubsidies, the sale down. u.s. it's about 10%. you had those 4,000 dealers who wrote to the white house saying put the brakes on evs. what's happened is they've become politicized.
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evs are going to be part of the 2024 presidential campaign. >> henry brlodget had been on twitter asking a similar question. why are are there not more hybrids and why not sort of reverse the scheme so there's a little bit of hybrid at the -- you know, make basically an electric car with a tiny amount of hybrid, rather than a gas powered engine with a little bit of battery. it seems that most of the folks that are in this industry feel like it's a simplicity thing, which is to say either you're all electric and if you want to add some distance, add an extra piece of battery or, be in the combustion engine business but to do both is more expensive, more complicated, et cetera. is that true? >> it is true. a hybrid is a more complicated car because it has two engine systems and a couple of years ago, the embrace of evs by major automobile companies said they're simpler to build, but
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they run into consumer resistance over them, and the system, we don't really have the charging system, and we don't have people -- we're a consumer society. people are not ready. >> it's the amazon principle, give the customer what they want. >> the one company that stood out was toyota, who kept saying hybrids and everybody else was over there, and now they've done well out of it. >> dan, it's always a pleasure to see you. thank you for being in house with us. and let us know more about the electricity issues if you think we're going to be able to meet demand. >> yeah, we'll come back and talk about that. okay, thanks, bye bye. dom chu digging into some of the stocks on the move this morning and putting southwest and boeing after this weekend's mishap. we'll talk about that and so aerhiros as "squawk box" ll onft ts.
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welcome back to sq"squaw box." i'm dominic chu, we're going to start in the skies. we're checking on shares of southwest airlines and boeing. they're in focus, and they're moving lower by roughly 1% or so. just around 10,000 shares of premarket trading volume. boeing by a similar percentage amount on 15,000 shares. now, this is after anengine cover fell off a southwest airlines boeing 737,800 model plane on sunday during a takeoff from denver international airport. the federal aviation administration said that the plane was headed to houston and returned safely to the gate.
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southwest says it is investigating the aircraft and the faa has also opened its own investigation into the matter. so those shares in focus right now, down roughly a percent each. a couple of notable analyst calls this morning, one helping to move shares of take-two interactive, just around 5,000 shares of svolume. behind block buster titles like grand theft auto to a buy raying to a neutral. t they think there's a compelling risk reward setup in the shares given expectation around the release of the newest grand theft auto 6 franchise as well as stabilization in its mobile gaming portfolio. bj's wholesale, roughly 2,000 shares of volume. analysts at goldman have upgraded from a buy to a neutral. they raised the target price to 87 bucks. they think there's a case for upside revenue growth given trends in grocery and better
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consumer trends as well. an attractive value proposition that could drive more market share gains for the wholesale club. keep an eye on bj's. for more on those and other analyst calls, head to cnbc.com/pro. subscribers can get more in eppth analysis on calls. ke it right here, we've got more "squawk box" coming right back after this break.
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i want to bring in robert frank who's going to tell us who is cashing out some of their holdings and maybe whether those of us should have been cashing out some of their holdings follow on. >> given what markets have been doing lately, maybe, yeah, so usually the big selling is in the fourth quarter. but this year's first quarter saw more selling than any quarter since 2021. total insider sales including prescheduled trades nearing $25 billion in the fist qrst qur according to smart insider. the selling is more than double the same quarter last year, and most of the sales were in tech. jeff bezos accounted for about a third of that, unloading $8.5 $8.5 billion worth of shares in february. amazon's ceo andy jassy cashing in $21 million of shares. that's equal to what he sold in 2022 and '23 combined. mark zuckerberg, who by the way is now the third richest person in the world, he just passed elon musk, he sold shares for the first time since 2021
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cashing in $135 million wot of shares. peter thiel, also selling for the first time in three years, he sold 175 million of palantir. snowflake's frank slootman cashed in 69 million just before he announced his departure. insider sales don't necessarily mean a top for the stocks, but studies do show they tend to have pretty good timing. they sell near the peaks. >> if you take bezos out of it. he's such an outlier. >> if you take bezos out, it was still the best quarter since the first quarter of 2021. it was still a lot of selling. and i don't think it's necessarily predictive. i think there was so much pent-up demand because 2022 and 2023 were so bad in the markets. >> in bezos' case and probably in andy jassy's case, he's trying to finance blue origin. >> yeah! and this year in particular is a super important year for blue origin in terms of what they're
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trying to do this fall. if they get this thing in the air, this is going to be the next competitor to spacex. he needs capital in a way most people don't, and selling in 2023 or '22 would have not been the most brilliant idea to begin with. jassy isn't trying to get a spaceship into space, but nonetheless, sell last year or the year before wouldn't have been such a brilliant idea either. >> bezos typically sells between a billion and 2 billion a year. so if you consider that 2022 he sold nothing, 2023 he sold nothing, that's 3 to 4 billion. it's still more, and there's still a big question, there's speculation he wants to buy that rocket launch company. that would be a lot less than $8 billion. he sold it very quickly. he had a year to sell that stock. he sold it in less than two weeks, and we still don't know. he just bought a $90 million property in miami. that's a little part of it. >> it is interesting. what do you think describes -- i mean, we were sitting at these same levels at the end of last year. is any of this tax related if
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you wait until the calendar flips? >> there's a lot of speculation that the selling right now is for people to pay their taxes in april. i don't know that, you know, when you're talking about $8 billion. now maybe the others could be taxable later or just basic financial planning when they haven't gotten rid of shares for a long time. >> robert frank, thank you. >> thank you, guys. >> appreciate it. >> when wie come back, steve liesman has more on the hawk versus dove dynamic inside the central bank. and is there a disconnect between consumers and the nation's economic data. more on this hot button issue that could loom large during this year's esenalacpridti re. "squawk box" will be right back. he stops!... for the championship! [crowds cheering] 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.
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aren't what they're cracked up to be, try one where you know what you'll get. there are some big questions around the fed's interest rate path. we are at a bit of an inflection point right now. our senior economics reporter steve liesman has been parsing the words in all the fed speak, and he finds a hawkish wing that is actually developing at the fed. st steve, this is pretty interesting. >> there's been some movement in the market as a result. the fed has been unusually unanimous when it comes to cutting the zero in the face of the pandemic and then hiking it over 5% to battle inflation. now some divisions are showing when it comes to the issue of cutting interest rates with a new hawkish wing expressing more skepticism than others about reducing rates and expressing greater risk about the inflation outlook. some of the headlines from last week, neel kashkari saying if
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inflation stalls maybe no cuts at all this year. others have hinted at it, but kashkari saying when you call the quiet part out loud. of course christopher waller seems on board with cutting rates this year, but he's much more cautious saying that it may be prudent to hold longer at these higher rates than previously thought. there are others as well that have been kind of in this mode here, neel kashkari, waller, lorie logan from dallas saying you have meaningful risk to continue inflation progress. bowman, the fed governor and raphael bostic on our air talking about this issue of one cut and probably as late as the fourth quarter. all right, where's the chair? kind of in the middle, maybe leaning a little bit dovish. he says it will be appropriate to lower rates at some time this years still seems to be holding along with daly from san
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francisco and messater from cleveland. all this hawkish resonating with markets. the problem this morning of a june rate cut falling to below 50% for the first time here, it's down from 65% before that strong friday jobs report. july increasingly at play, now at 68% from 80%. still the odds on bet, but we've seen all the volatility around this jpmorgan economists on friday night, they shifted their call for the first cut, guys, to july from june. this is in motion this week with inflation coming. i'm as much interested in the ppi on thursday as i am with the cpi, and of course we have the minutes to the fed meeting along with other economic data and andrew, of course lots and lots and lots of fed speak. >> thank you, stooeve. we're going to continue this debate and dialogue. our next guest latest article, and we talked about it on this
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broadcast last week underscores a massive disconnect between consumers and the state of the economy. the article was called what's wrong with the economy? it's you, not the data. it appeared in "the wall street journal" and is written by our friend greg ip of the wall street journal's deputy editor and chief economic commentator caused quite the debate at this table and around the country, greg. thanks for joining us. let's talk about this disconnect because you argue in your piece that you look at the poll numbers in terms of how people feel about the economy and even the trends and what they think is happening and say that the data just doesn't support it. >> yeah, this is one i think is really quite striking, andrew, is that like across a variety of questions inflations data economy, your own finances, what people say seems to be significantly at odds with what we know is going on. now, in that particular piece, i really seized on the fact that people were asked where did inflation go in the last 12 months, and they said it got worse even though as you and i
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know that the measured inflation rate actually got a lot lower. the point here isn't let's quibble about what people mean by inflation, it's that when people are asked almost anything about the economy, they react in a very sort of visceral way that everything is lousy, even though there's a fair bit of evidence that bit by bit things are getting better. it's the aim with their finances. we know the stock market is up a lot, but the average vanguard account was up 20% in 2023, and yet by a net fairly large margin, more people say their investments got worse than better. i mean, the fact that this negativism is so fascinating, obviously if you're joe biden a little troubling. >> greg, after you wrote that piece, joe and i got into a little back and forth about it, and he made the following argument -- by the way, we got some viewers as well sending in emails about it, and they say this. if you look at the last three and a half years and the total
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inflationary effect during that period and how inflation outpaced wages in a meaningful way that that accounts for why these feelings persist and that even if folks say to themselves, well, inflation is coming, quote, down, it's not deflationary, so prices are still going up. they're just not going up at the same pace, and if you add that in relative to where their wages were, relative to where their -- even their 401(k) accounts were, they don't feel good, and they say stop telling me how i'm supposed to feel. >> well, i didn't tell anybody how to feel in that particular piece. what i'mtrying to do here is sort of contrast what the facts tell us as an economic matter versus what people feel. and i think you're absolutely right. there's a lot of folks when they hear the word inflation, are not thinking about the 12 month rate of change in the consumer price index, they're thinking about the last few years. the overall atmosphere, the vibes if you will, i'm paying
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way more for groceries, way more for gasoline. maybe my paycheck is ahead of inflation now, but for a couple of years they were not. those are legitimate points. what is fascinating is we're trying to get in some of these polling questions how things are changing at the margin, obviously that's what you care about in a lot of cases. and we have been asking about people, how are things getting this the last year, and like this show and many others, you'll have economists talking about an amazing jobs report, wow a solid inflation report, things are really good. it's just not penetrating people's moods, and it's almost like people are primed to hear, to filter every question they hear and every time the topic of the economy comes up through this pervasive prior feeling of things are just really bad. the other thing that's really interesting, if you contrast how people ask about the country with how they feel about their local state they get very different answers. in our poll, how is the economy doing, by two to one ratio, they said it's doing terribly. how is your state doing, almost
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by the same ratio they say it's doing really well. a sense that even though things around them seem to be pretty okay, in fact, in some cases pretty good, they think the country is going in a bad direction. and to me that speaks to a broader sense of pessimism that is rooted not in what we think is going on in the hard and core economic data right now or 401(k)s. >> is that rooted in misinformation then? i want to bring in steve. >> i was going to go exactly where greg just went, andrew, which is this notion of what people are saying about their personal lives versus what they're saying about the broader economy, and i think one wayto sort of square this paradox that greg is bringing up is we're seeing some improvement in our data. this is a poll that came before "the wall street journal" poll, our all america poll. we have the highest in two years saying about their home values increasing, we have the highest in three years on the outlook for the stock market.
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pretty good average outlook for wages, and the lowest in 2000. now, all of these things are relatively low on the pessimism scale, but they're relatively high coming out of the pandemic. the other thing we are showing in the polls, greg, for what it's worstth is a pretty good sense of job security. when we ask about the national economy, things are down, but they're up from where they were, the percent who are optimistic now and for the future is up to 21%. low by long-term standards, and the percent that are pessimistic now and for the future has come down, but again, it's relatively low by long-term standards. >> greg, what do you think? >> you know, do you remember the famous disconnect where people would be asked what do you think of congress? we think it's doing a terrible job. what do you think of your congressman? i think he or she is doing a great job. that was sort of understandable
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because people hated the political system, even though they had no particular beef with the person representing them. i feel like how people feel about the political system is now pervasive about how they feel about the economic system as well that they're down on things like the border. they're down on things like, you know, covid i think had a terrible effect on people's overall sense of security and stability. i think they look at the election, they don't like the choices ahead of them. they hear the international scene, whether it's in the middle east or ukraine and so forth, and the whole world just feels like it's going in the wrong direction. what i do sort of find interesting, though, is that if you look at some of the surveys, like the university of michigan or the one that steve just talked about, and you focus your question specifically on the economic area, you'll sometimes get a more positive response than if you pframe them as part of a political poll. it almost feels like if you frame the discussion in terms of your pure numbers, you get a different answer than if you frame it in terms of the overall
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national scythes geist. >> the big problem is republicans are really down on the economy and democrats are not as up on the economy under biden as republicans were under trump. so biden has to get the democrats republicans were under trump. >> okay, i want to have you both of you guys back. we ain't over. lot more to discuss. greg, thank you. steve, thank you. >> all right, thanks. when we come back, propelling women's sports to the next level. ask ask topped caitlin clark's iowa hawk yoois in the ncaa women's game last night. some of the biggest stars in that game are heading to the pros. adventures... (gasp) you need weathertech. [hot dog splat.] laser measured floorliners front and rear.
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my name is oluseyi ♪ be by your side... i'll be there... ♪ and some of my favorite moments throughout my life are watching sports with my dad. now, i work at comcast as part of the team that created our ai highlights technology, which uses ai to detect the major plays in a sports game. giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport. south carolina became the tenth undefeated champion in
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women's college basketball history defeating the caitlin clark-led iowa team. joining us now to talk about march madness, the caitlin clark effect. kathy, thank you for being with us this morning. the viewership around what's been happening with the ncaa but walls the wnba has been pretty phenomenal. last night dawn staley the south carolina coach had this to say about krk krk. i want to personally thank caitlin clark for lifting up our sport. when she wa. >> our draft, becky, is a week from today. i agree with the sentiment, it's the confluence of a lot of positive things coming together on the business side and the
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basketball side and the rise of women's sport it's caitlin and others. angel reese, the big rivalry coming out of last year's championship. ge gener generanational talent. our asset values are going up. first women's property to raise $75 million in capital. this confluence of this coming together and caitlin and paige bueckers on friday night and then yesterday with undefeated south carolina/iowa. i know one thing coming out of business, you need three things in sports, names, household rivalries. and if you build it they will come. viewership beforethis last year for the wnba was up 23%, your attendance was up as well. what do you anticipate? is this a straight shot up,
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going to be hurdles along the way? >> certainly the 15 million that watched friday night was amazing. a huge game of consequences, the final four. most watched regular season in 21 years lastyear. our playoffs were great. super teams. we have these rivalries. again, 40-game regular season starting in may, but you know caitlin brings with her a huge fan base. just all these kamilla cardoso the most outstanding player yesterday in the finals, all these players are coming in with big viewership and followship. >> commissioner, let's talk about media rights, you extended the prime video deal with amazon, two-year extension. 2025 becomes a big year in terms of how much money you capitalize with all of the networks. what kind of percentage change do you think you'll be able to extract, if you will.
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>> we hope to double our rights fees. in women's sports rights fees have been undervalued. we this opportunity where the media landscape is changing so much, so, yes, we have prime video, again, we have espn and cbs, we do an over the air deal for friday night a pointment viewing. we're really excited to get out in the marketplace. >> how important is that money? some owners say, right now the players during the regular season, for example, fly on commercial planes, they would love to be able to charter planes, they can't afford to charter planes because the amount of money doesn't make sense, when you look at 2025 is that seminole moment that's going to change the entire game. >> i do. we're setting this league up
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with the next media deal but for the next 30. the history of men's sports do we have our bird/magic moment that nba did, it's media rights that funds a lot of what happens in men's sports as well as corporate partnerships, we've been doing great with corporate partnerships, but again, this is a long-term economic model. >> i mean, if you look at just how much you can pay your players right now, $300,000 versus the $5 million being offered to play three-on-three series that's a crazy disparity, you keep them and hope that publicity gets to the point where you can pay them some pretty big salary. >> reporter: absolutely, there are a lot of opportunities beyond the base pay, league marketing deals, team marketing
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deals and nil, women's college basketball players have national brand. caitlin has signed additional deals to come into the pros, because now you have a global platform not just a local platform. i feel confident for the stars they'll make a lot of money in the wnba. >> we love the story lines. commission e, thank you very much for being with us today. >> thank you so much, becky. >> by the way, she'll be the first-ever changemakers in new york city on april 18th she and many others will share how they're reshaping business and redefining leadership. scan the qr code to learn more or visit cnbcevents.com/changemakers. coming up, eclipse fever, happening today, the nation preparing for the celestial event. we'll talk to a former nasa
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astronaut about the th opaf totality and more when "squawk box" returns. get your special glasses. the future is not just going to happen. you have to make it. and if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea, and now becomes the future where you grew a dream into a reality. the all new godaddy airo. put your business online in minutes with the power of ai.
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catalysts, including key inflation data and the kick off of earnings season and treasury secretary yellen speaking out about u.s./china relations, highlights from the cnbc exclusive interview and today's solar eclipse. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box." right here on cnbc. i'm biggy quick alongside with joe ross sorkin. it's a monday morning. you'll see the dow has turned
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around, up ten points earlier this morning. nasdaq is off by about five. this comes after the dow's worst week we've seen in a year after last week. treasury yields have been higher and right now it looks like the ten year is at 4.59. the ten-year is 4.445. the two-year is sitting at 4.78. the biden administration has awarded taiwan semiconductors $11 billion in terms of loan. spirit airlines is delaying airbus orders that were scheduled for delivery in 2025 and 2026, moving them back to the years 2030 and 2031, it says the move will improve its liquidity position over the next two years.
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mark zucker begg has passed elon musk on the list of world's richest people. that move coming as meta stock is trading at record highs. meantime, new this morning, jamie di many, on publishing his annual to shareholders. he writes the following, despite the sun elting landscape, the war in the middle east, the u.s. economy, quote, continues to be resilient with consumers still spending. says, the market seems to be pricing in 70% to 80% of a soft landing. but he thinks the odds are lower. persistent inflationary pressures including ongoing fis kale spending, remilitarization of the world, global trade restructuring and issued a warning, we may be entering one of the most treacherous
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geopolitical eras since world war ii. concerned about the large deficits supported by quantitative easing. mike santoli joins us now. good morning. good morning, andrew. lot of those issues that jamie just detailed here, has the market's attention, resulted in last week in a little bit of wobble, what happened before that 2% decline last week five months of not even a 2% drop, low volatility rally really getting support if it had a 20-day average. you see here we did dip below it, with friday's little bump higher on the good jobs numbers we did surmount it again, whether we have a little bit of the makings of a more of a
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reset, i thought around 50/50 which we got to here in february, into march, was kind of where this rally was heading. it's outperformed a loft those targets todate. take a look at theleadership changes, it's been a broadening market away from the growth stocks, energy is now on a year to year basis eclipsing technology. it's very telling. we have this reflationary. it's risen outside of this box that i would say it's been in since december. nothing so critical about these levels right here, you see two months that we spent above 4.40 or so, that was back in the fall, when the market was having a pretty significant correction,
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the stock market was, lot of concern about treasury supply and that's why the cpi number, ppi has outside significance because of how bond markets are postured head of it. >> mike, thank you for helping us to figure out where things are heading. appreciate it. for more on the markets as investors eagerly anticipate that cpi number we'll get later this week. we want to bring in the president of ardeni research, you have such a good sense of how markets are trending, what the psychology of markets are, you said a couple of things recently that gave me pause, just this idea that maybe you think things have run to an extent, with the stock market now, you have some concerns about the bond market, lay out what you're thinking and how you're feeling.
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>> i think in the near-term here, we have to focus on what's happening in the commodity markets. the price has dropped above $80 a barrel. now it's back below $90. it could head up to $100 a barrel if the situation in the middle east continues to deteriorate. so i've been focusing on the geopolitical concerns, which have not been getting better, they've been getting worse, obviously increasing risks of a direct confrontation between the israel and iran and if that were to happen the price of oil could very rapidly get up to $100 a barrel the short-term inflationary consequences i think would force the fed to basically concede there won't be any rate-cutting this year and the concerns about a wage price
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spiral might be back. with regards to the market as you said, becky, i think we're at 21 forward p.e., the market goes up on earnings and i do think the outlook for earnings is actually pretty good but this straight-up move based on valuation might be behind us for a little while. >> it's interesting, even though if the fed doesn't cut rates as long as we don't see a huge spike in inflation, maybe companies can make up. you're weighing the risks and bala balances. >> becky, i've been looking at previous decades for analogies and i'm still thinking this will turn out to be the roaring 2020s, kind of similar to 1920s tremendous productivity growth and tremendous prosperity.
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but it didn't end well. but for a time it was a good time. >> we got another five years left to go ed. >> absolutely, so there's room to grow, on the short-term basis i'm worried about the 1970s, two spikes in the price of oil that was persistent and forced the fed to raise rates. small chance of that happening. it's a geopolitically-related risk. it looked to be the case over the past several weeks, if you ask me to put probabilities on it, 60% likelihood it's going to be the roaring 2020s. now, you mentioned jamie di many, on, he seems to be talking about the 1930s, lot of decades we can look back to. >> bottom line you'd tell people don't necessarily add to your
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holds here but i wouldn't sell out. >> that's correct. i think there's going to be some profit-taking here. >> okay. ed, appreciate your time. appreciate your thoughtfulness. >> thank you. >> we'll see you again soon. when we come back, a large swath of the u.s. is going to be experiencing a total eclipse of the sun, just a little today, here's where everyone thinks they're going to be, we'll talk to an astronaut and columbia professor in just a moment about what you need to know about all of it. we're coming back.
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welcome back. eclipse-mania is peaking across the u.s. this afternoon, solar eclipse has sun gazers flooding towns. companies jumping on the bandwagon we clips-themed goods. want to bring in a former astronaut who's a columbia professor, he's in arkansas the place for maximum viewing, i don't know if you can still get a flight there in time right now, but mike it's great to see
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you this morning. >> my pleasure. >> do the news you can use, for everyone who's thinking they're going to leave the office, go outside this afternoon, maybe if they're at school they're going to leave school, maybe if they're working from home, leave their house, how you can do this safely and how you can't. >> andrew, that's a good point, everyone should be looking up today at the right time, find out where the eclipse is going to be taking place even if you're not in the path of totality, it's still a pretty cool thing to see, you want to be careful, never looking into the sun without the correct eye protection it's rally important today. unless you're in the total path of totality, only for those moments when it's in total eclipse is taking place is it safe to look up, any time the
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sun is visible you don't want to be looking up because you can damage your eyes. get the right kind of glasses to view the eclipse. >> got the right glasses it appears, becky. >> you can't see anything in these things. >> that's right. >> if you can't get access to these glasses by the way ard to get at this point, you know they sold out in many places, if you go on amazon they'll deliver to you on thursday of this week which is not helpful, i think warby parker is still giving some for free. >> you can make a pinhole camera, when i was a kid a long time ago we were encouraged to make these pinhole cameras, taking a piece of cardboard, getting a pinhole in it and projecting it on to something else and you'll be able to watch it. another safe way to view it.
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get your hands on the right eye protection, the correct glasses, that's even better. >> how long is this path of totality lasts when you do see it? what should people be looking for? by the way, there are parts of the country that are experience it they're not going to see it because the weather is no good. >> all true statements with the weather in particular but as far here in russellville, we're going to have over four minutes of totality. before that an hour of the moon moving into position to start blocking the sun, taking chunks of it as it goes which is really cool, after the four minutes of totality and darkness it's going to start -- keep moving in its path and you want the eye protection to see it. if you're not on the path of totality you'll see the moon kind of move and block part of
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the sun and then recede again. it's something that's really cool to watch but you need good weather. hopefully wherever you are you'll have a clear sky -- >> this is a crucial point, i should tell you the sorkin boys in my household have asked me to ask you this question and i think there's a safety issue involved, they all want to film it on their phones, so the question is, how can you do that and do that safely and be able to actually see what's going on the screen of your phones to the extent you're going to film it and wear the glasses at the same time. give us some instructions for those -- you're now an influencer yourself online. here we go. >> andrew, for your boys and everybody, my advice is to enjoy the eclipse safely with the glasses and let the
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professionals film it, that's just my advice, if you want to film get the right filters, there are filters you can somehow get, maybe it's too late to get those, you need the right filters in order to do that safely. >> it will break the lens? >> i don't know what it would do to the camera but i do know they're selling -- crow could get filters so that you can use them with your camera and phone. i've always heard you can hold up the lenses to the camera lens to your phone lens and that might work. that may be worth a try. i'd be careful. my opinion with these things you want to experience it. there's going to be a really great images and filming of this stuff. i would film the reactions of
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your friends, the people around you, what they think and what they're doing. that's my advice. >> okay. mike, thank you for psa. becky was doing a psa with the glasses. she can't read from here. >> he's right. my brother who was at the last one they all traveled to see this lunar eclipse and it was cloudy and couldn't see it. rob put on the show. anyway, when we come back, treasury secretary yellen in an exclusive interview in china. that's next.
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treasury secretary janet yellen wrapping up a trip to china earlier this morning, she spoke to sarah eisen in a cnbc exclusive interview. sarah, we've been talking all morning long about the potential geopolitical risks to the market. certainly the relationship between china and the united states is incredibly important in all of this, too. >> reporter: yeah, good evening from beijing, becky, one of the most important bilateral economic relationship between the u.s. and china and secretary yellen's visit here was a bit of a diplomatic balancing act between opening the lines of communication even more and restoring the relationship which she said she did at the same
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time delivering a tough message on the economy, about things that the u.s. disagree with, and the primary one was this issue of overcapacity, or dumping subsidies by the chinese government to chinese industry ev, solar panel, lithium ion panel they flood the world with cheap exports and threaten u.s. companies. i asked her how that message was received. >> i do think they understand where we're coming from and they have agreed to continue in an intensive dialogue on this issue, i think they understand it's important and they do have tools they could use perhaps would take a while to have an effect. >> export restrictions? >> not so much as export
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restrictions but their maco policy. the amount of local government subsidies to firms in these industries. >> what's at take economically because, don't we need green technology, we need evs, we need solar panels, a big push by the biden administration, what are you afraid of? >> we do. there's going to be growing and we expect a global economy where the demand will be increasing and there's nothing wrong with investing in these industries and developing capacity. >> because we do it. the inflation reduction act. >> we do it, too. we want to make sure that we're not driven out of businesses. we have opportunities in industries that will be important. >> if they don't shift, are we looking at potential tariffs on
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these products? >> well, i wouldn't rule anything out at this point. we need to keep everything on the table. want to work with the chinese to see if we can find a solution. we are engaging in a four-year review of section 301 tariffs that's not complete, so i can't speak to what will come of it. >> the tariffs imposed during the trump administration, are they still very concerned about that? >> usually they raise the issue of the 301 tariffs, they've said for a long time they would like to see them reduced. of course they were put in place because there were findings of unfair trade practices against the united states. and vice premier, my counterpart
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and i have agreed that, while trade and investment between our two countries is beneficial and desirable it needs to be on a level playing field. so we're rally raising this issue in that context. i think we also feel especially after the pandemic that the resilience of our supply chains is something we need to take more -- pay more attention to and being overly dependent on any single country for a very important good in your economy can lead to a dangerous fragility in supply chains and in some cases of these clean
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energy goods, electric batteries, minerals that go into them, solar panels, we've been very, very heavily dependent on china and that's another reason why we and other countries want to are some domestic capacity. >> you mentioned other countries but china has been flooding europe for instance with cheaper evs, can you blame europe which doesn't have as much growth now as the u.s.? >> i mean, europe and china have close trade ties, europe benefits from exports to china but on the other hand the car industry is very important in countries like germany. europe doesn't want to see these industries destroyed. they're an important source of jobs and very valuable ones.
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>> we have tariffs. we haven't seen chinese evs in the u.s., should they be allowed to sell their evs in the united states in. >> i mean, they're allowed to sell their evs in the united states, we don't have rules against it. again, in that area as well we're trying to foster a domestic industry, we're certainly open to imports including those from china, no rule against china selling evs in the united states. >> but we have higher tariffs on them than europe? >> we do have tariffs on them, i believe, but you know this is for us an important industry. >> reporter: secretary yellen,
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they're saying she expects them to reduce the subsidies to the chinese companies for things like evs and solar panels. you know she said it was well received and they heard the message, but the commentary out of state media was very critical of this issue of overcapacity in part they wrote, it smacks at creating a pretext for rolling out more protectionist policies to shield u.s. companies. when it comes to secretary yellen, i have to say she was very well received, we monitored some of the trends on social media and they were all following her visit very carefully. she ate at a cantonese restaurant. there was a hashtag there. has more than 23 million views. they were impressed with her chopsticks, that hashtag 7 to 8
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million views right now. they enjoy her personally and she did make a number of stops to important cultural visits on this trip. but overall, pretty anti-american sentiment if you monitor official statements from the government and state media. >> sara, one thing that struck me how you started off that interview, talking about evs and the subsidies that she's kind of pushing the americans that we don't want to see evs and other things flooding the world market, we've gotten the same pushback in this country from our european allies with the inflation reduction act or the chips act right now, money dole out this morning for the chips act. >> it's a fair point. it's hard to criticize industrial policies so much when we're doing it with the chips sector and also trying to encourage building of green
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products here at home or back at the united states. i think what the treasury would argue on that front is, you need supply meet to demand and the criticism around china is the fact they're pushing out exports on the world stage driven by these heavy subsidies and therefore reducing competition from industries in europe and in the u.s. for these strategic industries, so it's all about the exports, much like they did with steel, which pressured prices and really hurt the domestic steel industry and put a lot of those companies out of business, i think that's the real focus and concern. but no question, we're doing some of that at home. >> yeah, sara, thank you very much. excellent job with all of this coverage. when we return, representative josh gottheimer just back from a middle east trip, we'll hear about the efforts to release hostages.
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new jersey representative josh gottheimer has just returned from a trip to qatar, foca trip focused on bringing hostages home. congressman, tell us where things stand, because this may be just about the most difficult situation around the globe with the exception of maybe ukraine at this point. >> well, good morning. thanks for having me. as we saw over the weekend, hopefully signs of progress in terms of getting the hostages freed, cia director was in the region, in egypt you had the qataris and the egyptians there as well, and of course the qataris in touch closely with hamas, so trying to figure out a way to get these hostages free a temporary pause in the fighting and more humanitarian aid which is key in the region.
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longer term i hope with hamas which is a terrorist organization committed in clear in their commitment to attacking a second, third and fourth time and seeing the destruction of israel, you've got many issues at play here and part of my discussions with the negotiators in qatar and in egypt. >> is there proof that there are still hostages who are alive, you know the condition of any of them, it's been six months. >> one of the hostages is from new jersey, turned 20 a few months ago and there's no information which of course for all these hostages, there was a israeli hostage found dead and our prayers with his family and for all these families because not knowing the -- the red cross hasn't been allowed in, no one knows the conditions of these
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hostages and you can't imagine for a minute what they're going through and that's why we have to do everything urgeurgently. hamas could do this today if they wanted to do. >> if they wanted to. you think this is 24 hours a day they're still working on these active negotiations, what do you think the sticking points are? >> becky, i saw it in realtime, everyone is working around the clock to make this happen, part of this making sure the qataris are doing everything they can keeping the pressure on them and of course on all the parties involved. what do i think is going on, i think they take five steps forward, you know five steps back, they get close, part of the challenge we make sure is never sending a mixed signal and i think the u.n. resolution did that and other comments sending
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to hamas that the united states doesn't stand with its key ally israel we have to be very careful about that could cause progress to head in the wrong direction you can really upend progress with sending the wrong situ signals. we got to get more humanitarian aid in the region. israel opening up a crossing in the north and in the south. more humanitarian aid. the bottom line is, we need to get the hostages out, hamas has to be diminished or surrender as i think they should and i think there should be a lot of pressure on hamas to surrender. the bottom line is, we need to do everything we can to keep this spreading into a broader
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regional conflict. >> hamas isn't going to be surrendering any time soon, so how dow you accomplish what the idf in israel want to do in terms of what they would describe external nating hamas and do that in a way at the same time that humanitarian efforts and others can be brought to bear so that palestinians are not going to be put in harm's way at this point in this situation. and politically, i'm curious, if you'd weigh in on what's clearly now a divide between the biden administration, parts of your party, parts of the rest of this country and the rest of this world as it relates to how israel has gone about it. >> a lot of important questions, andrew. very tough challenge for all the parties right to execute and to make sure that you sufficiently crush a terrorist organization
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who said it would do it again and again. by the way, part of -- like the houthis -- they killed 40 americans, hamas and we still have five americans alive who are hostages. so, you're dealing, you know, a very difficult situation and we know that hamas uses innocent palestinians as human shields, so you got a lot of difficult factors but we have to do everything we can to protect innocent people and get aid in. this is not -- if i had the answers of how to execute it, if anybody did, it would have been done lready, i think, you know, israel and i think these are the conversations that are going on and a lot of them privately and some of them of course with public signals to do what they need to do carefully and, you
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know, i think if you are anyone trying to execute this war and stop terrorist organization from coming at you again in where a region iranian-backed proxies are firing at you and us it makes it incredibly difficult. we got to get to a pause. get the hostages out. i think both parties are at the table trying to do this exactly right now. >> congressman, thank you. >> thanks for having me. i really appreciate it. when we come back, the presidential election in the middle of the a.i. evolution, one tech giant already taking steps to stem the tide of deep fakes and other altered media, enough to stop the flow of misinformation, a question we'll be discussing and debating when we come back. ing each other rock stars. you're a rock star. we're all rock stars. oooo look look at my data driven insights, i'm a rock star.
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great job putting finance and hr on one platform with workday. thank you! guys, can you keep it down. i'm working. you people are (guitar noises). hand over the air guitar. i've got another one. when it comes to investing, we live in uncertain times. some assets can evaporate at the click of a button. others can deflate with a single policy change. savvy investors know that gold has stood
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all the deep fakes, whether you think labeling them deep fakes or not real or generated by a.i. is going to solve the misinformation problem. >> clearly that won't solve the misinformation problem, though it think it's a very important first step. its current generative technology makes it really easy to make fake media that's realistic. a number of events in campaign ads, misinformation from other countries. . any measures to help inform the public about this is going to be good thing. that said, there's probably not going to be a failsafe technological solution, what we really need is a broader social solution, an educated public, and smart news consumers. >> okay, well, with apologies, you know, those are hard to come
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by. educated and very smart consumers who watch this broadcast, but i think there's a lot of troubling information that floats around the country and there's lot of folks who don't understand the difference or distinction. by the way, some people who don't want to understand the difference and distinction, when you say it's the solution is social i'm not sure that you can impose that on a society or be able to create a solution like that. >> i agree. and that's why people like me are working on trying to build as many technical tools as we can to help protect against these types of misinformation threats. it's very like i mentioned before it's very easy to make fake and misleading media. through traditional tools like photoshop. your normal person at a quick glance might believe that these things are real, i think what we need, again, are a continuation of developmental tools like this
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as well as the opportunity to talk to the public through programs like this where we can say, hey, when you see piece of media that doesn't seem quite right think about it a little bit. >> let's talk about the psychological effects, folks who see things that are deep fakes and they know it's a deep fake. yet it actually has an impact on them nonetheless. that's the piece i don't understand how you'll get around. >> my expertise isn't on the psychological piece but more on the technical part. but i agree. we want to develop as many tools as we can to help inform information consumers about what they're looking at, what they're seeing and hearing, so they can make the most informed decisions about the information they're
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consuming. >> that assumes, if you're exposed to something that's fake you know it's fake and yet it actually still has an impact on you, has an impact on the discussion, it opens up the window to something that you might not have thought of. all of these things the labeling that you might do, the technical solutions that you might have as long as people are exposed to it it won't change the dynamic. >> again i'm not an ek pert on the psychological part of this, it opens up a broader ethical that we need to consider. we're seeing the emergence of a new type of information security problem. in the past when we looking at problems, we said, i want to stop a bad guy from getting access to information on my computer orover hearing my phone
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calls, the protection against that, is network security. we know where information comes from. now we're in an era information is being generated by unknown or untrusted sources. we see it. it may have an effect. we need to rethink our models of how we deal with this both technical, social, legal and ethical. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. all right, coming up, we're counting down to the opening bell on wall street with another big week that includes more inflation data plus the kick off of earnings season. right now the dow futures up close to 60 points, a turn to the positive side of things.
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the retail customer, the retail investor these days and what are you seeing in terms of what's happening out there, in terms of what folks are buying and selling? >> so, we released our report on a monthly basis, we saw a pretty hefty bump, about 8% in february, meaning this, investor confidence is really starting to pick up. we saw that in march, fifth straight month of increases. it takes us back to levels we haven't seen since may of 2022. a nice bump in the month, we saw buying kind of mostly centered in i.t. and you'd definitely see that in nvidia, apple and tesla coming in terms of disc discretionary, the three buys we saw across those sectors. >> we were trying to make this morning, bitcoin up to $72,000
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and sometimes people say, it's a hedge on what the fed's going to do, it looks like the fed isn't going to be lowering interest rates. others say it's actually a great sort of indicator of speculation of liquidity in the marketplace. >> yeah, so, let me give you some stats from march, specifically around it's bitcoin, if you look at our biggest sell was coinbase, bitcoin rallied as much as it did. we did see investors trim into that some of the strength. ancillary plays around fintech as well. in terms of whether or not that shows investor enthusiasm or i think, you know, fomo the term that gets thrown around from time to time. i think what it shows, you know,
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investors are looking for other avenues to find some upside buys. it's something that, you know, when i see that it does tend to send up a little bit of a red flag, one of the things that's interesting that 8% increase we're kind of below those mean stock levels of 75 or so. yes, we did see a big bump but we're not seeing the leverage plays that charles schwab that we've seen in past. >> david einhorn was on air last week, he made a good point is that really the rise of index funds has in his mind preverdicted the actual investing process, moved by indexes unto themselves.
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as someone who runs a firm like yours, charles schwab, what you think about that. >> for the average investor indexing makes sense just because of the amount of -- you know, just the amount of kind of study that has to go into finding stocks, but i will say this, we provide an incredible amount of education and opportunity for our investors to do that study, whether it's through what we do with schwab coaching, those are webcasts that we do on a daily basis, now does it skew the values, i think what might skew it to a certain extent is the market cap and the big names at this point represent 25% of the s&p 500, that might skew it. but i think for the average investor indexing still makes sense. >> do you think it's changed the dynamic, though, meaning there's not the true price discovery
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even these individual investors buying and selling it's in such small proportion it doesn't make a difference? >> yeah, no. i get that point. but what, you know, from what we see, we still look at the equity level. we're looking at what they're doing with the individual exweties and what we see at that point, we see discernment, buying into weakness -- two of the names that were bought the most heavily in the last period were apple and tesla. >> joe, want to thank you for joining us this morning. appreciate it. >> thank you. a final check on the markets as we wrap things up here, right now, green arrows again. dow futures up by about 60 points. nasdaq up by 53. coming off a weaker week last
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week. dow had its worst week last week. the ten year is yielding 4.44. we'll be back here tomorrow. >> wearing our glasses later this afternoon. we'll see you back here tomorrow. right now it's time for "squawk on the street". good monday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." futures are steady despite some rising treasury yields. busy week in focus with cpi. yellen in china. a total eclipse of the sun. america's chip plays, taiwan semigetting a billion-dollar investment from uncle
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