♪ emily: i am emily chang in san francisco. coming up, retail investors at it again. bidding upstairs -- up shares of gamestop. this after robinhood calls in a one million-dollar lifeline following my interview with the

ceo and cofounder. plus, how will the fcc weigh in? we will speak to an fcc veteran. as angry users drop robinhood, other trading apps seeing a surge. we speak to someone who has a new pitch for his platform. another day to watch the markets. i want to get straight to bloomberg at ludlow. u.s. markets were closed, watch -- walk us through the action. >> stock volatility very high. look at what happened in equities in asia and europe. the issue is the story of the week. a frenzy of retail traders piling into short and stocks, going against traders.

the -- wall street. the s&p 500, a poor day. the biggest weekly decline and 3% -- in three months. no sector was spared. it was selloff across the board. the nyse index, a basket of mega-tech stocks, many of which will report earnings, down 2.5%. the philadelphia semi conductor index a little better but down on .6. -- 1.6%. the stock seen volatility, 67 percent. amc another name discussed in boards like reddit, up 50% are between, up a modest 2% after the wild swings -- modest 2%.

tootsie up a modest 2% after the wild swings. elon musk tweeting overnight, #bitcoin. that did drive the price up overnight. it is back a little before -- below 40,000. it continues to be a story of volatility, even as more wall street investors, institutional investors, look at cryptocurrencies like bitcoin as more mainstream. emily: elon musk does not surprise me but tootsie roll does. thank you for that. i continue with our coverage, halting trading of gamestop and others. we have -- had the founder of a popular reddit forum in

bloomberg. he weighed in on the impact. >> my intention when i first started wall street was trying to get myself familiarized with high-risk, high return trading potential, plane stock options. there was an absence for a community that could discuss these things. did i expect it to turn into this? absolutely not. i think it has gone past anything i could have ever imagined. it is quite impressive. emily: absolutely fascinating. i am joined by whitney tom gordon. thank you for joining us. so curious how you weigh in on this. did collusion happen? is it punishable? tell us. is there something suspect? >> thank you for having me. i appreciate being here.

this is the most unusual situation. these markets are among the most regulated places in the world. they are lawyers and leaders of regulations. yet, they still allow for what is now a first time only event. the shorts in the market started this. they pick out a company like aim stop, doesn't have very good financials. in they short it. why? because they think it is going to fall. the price will fall. they will make money. but nobody ever fights back with the shorts. this is the first time somebody has fought back. people supposedly through robinhood, and twitter but probably through robinhood, are pushing back at them. it is kind of like david throwing rocks at goliath. but the real problem for us, back at the fcc which will come back to we don't know who david

is. david could be bigger than the sharks. he could be a huge head fund -- hedge fund that is well-funded. nobody knows because there is no disclosure. the question is, who is fighting with whom? emily: you suspect some of this is institutional money? it is a lot of money piling into the stocks. i know there are some of these retail investors, folks holding on and could make millions right now, but just want to prove a point. do you think there is more going on here? >> there really could be going on. the shorts are probably big institutional players, hedge funds, they are sophisticate in traders. they do this kind of thing all of the time. usually the company complains, they yell, they are unhappy understandably so. but they don't really do

anything. maybe file a lawsuit that goes no place. and then that is the end of it. that is not happening this time. to just suggest this is all a bunch of 17-year-old kids who have fond memories of gamestop and they are trading through robinhood because there is no brokerage fees, which there are not, to suggest this is just a handful of kids like that, doesn't really ring true. you have to have lots of trading, lots of money to push this stuff. you could have a conglomeration of thousands of kids, and with a whole pile of a lot of little contributions kind of like a political campaign where you give five dollars, they could may be back enough in these guys that they start to bail out. that is the key question. the sec clearly knows who these

people are. they can go to the brokerage firms, go to robinhood and say we went the account opening documents. we want to know what accounts are trading. but we don't know that. that is one of the more interesting things. this does not happen to the shorts. usually, they just go crush the stock. they do what they want. nobody likes it. nobody likes the short, they think they are bad guys but it moves on. this is sort of like twitter, someone throws out some statement and everybody jumps in and fights with them. this is the new technology. the new kind of stockmarket bobble. -- bubble. unlike the one you saw in 2000. even 2008. this is different. now you have multiple sides. before, all you ever saw was the so-called bad guys.

the shorts are just traders like everybody else, not bad guys but everybody thinks about them like that. you saw them pushing down and making money. not so much anymore. emily: tom, it sounds like some diligence on the part of the fcc is needed to find out who these people are. i did speak to the ceo of robinhood and he tried to explain why they decided to restrict buying, which is what users are so angry about. here is his explanation. >> it is nonnegotiable for us to comply with our financial requirements. we just have to do that. robinhood has always stood and continue to stand with individual investors. we were not erected by a market

maker or any other participant. this was a technical and operational decision. emily: what do you make of robinhood actions? they are facing lawsuits. they have lawmakers calling for an investigation, a hearing. did robinhood do anything illegal? or fraudulent? >> probably not. certainly not by restricting the trading through their brokerage firm. they have obligations to their clients. they have obligations to the market. they have to look at exactly how they did it. presumably, they followed their own reviews. there is an overview of sec regulations that allow them to have a certain amount of net capital on file. you can bet what the sec is

doing, they are looking at the traders, they are looking at what the shorts are doing. they are clearly look team at what is going on with the trade going through robinhood and there are probably other programs firms, too. they are looking to make sure they are in compliance with the net capital rules and the other rules that govern their operations. if they are not, they will get shut down. emily: we are going to be speaking with the ceo of another trading app. a headline just crossed silver lake sold its entire stake in amc. there are big players at work here. tom gorman, veteran from the sec. former senior counsel and partner at dorsey. thank you so much for joining us. coming up, more of "bloomberg technology." another variant of covid and

another vaccine in the way. we are going to bring you the latest on johnson and

>> most likely toward the end of february, we will have an advisory panel. we will get emergency user approval and then we will start delivering the vaccine. emily: johnson & johnson's ceo, chief science officer, earlier. he says he is working -- they are working on a booster to combat the south african variant. the johnson & johnson results are promising. how should the general public

look at this? >> it is a promising development. it is basically -- one of the headline numbers is the vaccine prevented 66 percent of moderate to severe cases. more importantly, prevented 85 percent of severe infections and 100% of hospitalizations. those numbers are really strong. anthony fauci said if it can prevent the disease in a high percentage of people, it goes a long way to preventing the pandemic. even though the 66% is not as high as the pfizer or moderna, it is a good number and there likely to get that emergency authorization in march which would allow them to start setting that vaccine right into arms -- sending that vaccine right into arms. emily: is this a vaccine that could be available to the

general public and at what point? >> they have said they are ramping up as soon they get that authorization, which could be as soon march. we would be able to see how quickly this could get out the door. it will be really helpful in terms of allowing more people to get the vaccine. it will require one dose. only one dose. during the and pfizer are two doses. -- moderna and pfizer are two doses. it has been really problematic people there twice. long lines, problems with equipment. the more doses that are out there and the less trouble getting the vaccine, the more people who will be able to be immunized and the sooner you will get that to really reduce not only the severity but the incidence of these outbreaks. emily: we are still fighting

these new variance. -- variants. there is no vaccine for kids. dr. fauci said today, we could have one by late spring or summer. talk to us about the remaining hurdles through herd immunity. >> there are a lot of things that still have to happen. the variants are abounding to meet we are seeing the south african variant being found in south carolina. they were acknowledging they are seeing these and it is concerning. they seem to think the vaccines can work against them, but there are risks.

keeping second doses on hand is complicating the push to get people inoculated. their thinking is if you can get more doses out, that is a powerful new tool. to fight this virus and get ahead of these variance. that is the goal here, as dr. fauci was telling us today. emily: thank you so much for helping us digest the fine print. jodi schneider who covers vaccines for bloomberg. coming up, cloud coffer -- software vendor returns to the public. we are going to bring you a conversation wit so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward,

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emily: one weeks to return to the public market. qualtrics, the enterprise

spinoff of sap, surging. i spoke with the ceo and founder. take a listen to what they have to say. >> this is an incredible day. it is an important milestone in the way we are going this company and we continue to lead. we have over 3300 employees working across the globe, helping to deliver breakthrough experiences for as of today over 13,000 customers working with us. we have been building this company with a long run view. ryan can expand on that but we do not get caught up in the market. we don't pay attention to what an everyday price will be. what we focus on his delivering value for our customers. focusing on the fundamentals we are focused on, experience, the core of extremes for businesses

matters more than ever. we have been through that with the history of this company. ryan can expand on that as well. we are quite excited. emily: does going public help you compete with the likes of salesforce? obviously, salesforce getting eager. marc benioff, he is very colorful and very confident about their ability to compete. how does being public help with that? >> i think we are going to be and we are the size where people are comparing us to those much larger companies. salesforce and others. we have to go into that. i think if you would have told us three years ago we would have been in this spot and this is where the landscape would be, i will tell you one thing. experience is at the forefront of every ceo's mind.

from either the employee or customer side. it is the number one challenge every industry is facing. we are all operating without a playbook right now. not having a playbook, qualtrics adds the data you need to know where to go. that is incredibly important. emily: you have chosen to go public in quite a day with what is happening with gamestop and robinhood and the controversy around hedge funds and institutional investors. what is your take on what is happening? are we seeing a fund a mental shift in power from institutions to individuals? is that dangerous? how do you do that -- you that? >> we chose to go public in 2018 when we were the only show on the road. we knew when we were coming out, coming into this, filing with an election, postelection, we are in the middle of a pandemic. we built this for 20 years.

we want to focus on the lien a long-term company. i think the shift back to retail has been happening for a long time. i don't know how it is going to play out, but i think this is a trend that has been happening for decades. emily: there definitely seems to be a pushback against centralization and institutions. i wonder, there is a concern about individuals losing a lot of money and terms of these retail trades. on the other hand, folks are saying who is robinhood to cut them off? whose side you take? you have a view on who should have the power? >> we are not going to get caught up in the market. when you look at some of the market dynamics taking place today, there is a different set of dynamics that are probably representative of dynamics that took place 10-15 years ago. if you look at the fundamentals of what we do and what we are focused on, which is experiences

, it is becoming the new currency of business. when you look at tech and how people are trying to get close to become more personal with the customers, more engaged with the employees, you're finding a significant market opportunity and a lot of investors see the fact we are building this company for the long run. the culture of this company has been designed to build something that should affect many generations of organizations that end up leveraging our platform. that is currently why today is just a milestone where we are going to be headed. >> i will double-click on that. when it comes to robinhood and those apps, they have created an experience that is a lot more play letters, retailers, individuals go and trade -- players, retailers, individuals go and trade. i don't to get is that much different than uber or doordash. every industry is having to

adjust to that. we have seen it in hospitality and travel. i think it is just coming this way now. i don't stock it up as more than that. i don't know why it is such an alarming thing. did we not see this coming? maybe some of the tactics are under question and that is what it is. there are entrepreneurs sitting around the world everywhere trying to disrupt an old experience, and companies -- it committees that are plain in the space do not design that into their -- here we are. emily: ryan smith and zig sa rafin. other trading apps are pushing back, saying they are not responsible for halting trades in gamestop and others. i will also bring you my interview with the ceo of

robinhood. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to " bloomberg technology." robinhood still getting slammed with criticism over whether they made the right call limiting the trading of certain securities like gamestop. i spoke to the ceo yesterday over what drove that decision. >> there is a lot of misinformation out there, in particular there are people saying we were forced to do this by market makers or other market

participants. i want to come out and say that is categorically false. we were not directed by a market maker or any other market participant. this was a technical and operational decision we made because robinhood is a brokerage has financial requirements including clearing house deposits we have to make to various clearing houses. some of these fluctuate based on volatility. in this current environment can be substantial. to protect the firm, we temporarily disabled buying these securities. we hope to reenable buying as soon as tomorrow morning. >> that said, did any of your investors were other market makers ask you to hold these trades? even if that is not why you did

it? >> no. emily: talk to us about why we you would allow users to sell if you are no -- but not by if you are about democratizing finance. >> users not allowing to sell is very painful to customers. getting out of a position that you are holding and not being able to do that is painful. we stand with our customers. we want to give them the ability and the platform to invest in stocks, by and call. restricting buying, obviously, not as painful as restricting all trading. emily: if hedge funds can short

100 proved -- 140%, but you cannot go long, how does that make sense? >> it is nonnegotiable for us to comply with our financial requirements. we just have to do that. robinhood has always stood and will continue to stand with the individual investors, their ability to have access to buying and selling stocks. i have to say now, i can kind of understand how clorox and lysol were feeling at the beginning of the dynamic, when there were so much demand for something. we are doing what we can. we hope to have them enabled tomorrow morning. the team has been working and quietly hard, day in and day out, so we are available to our

customers. so we operate and run a reliable service for them. emily: vlad tenev, ceo of robinhood. trading somewhat restricted in the platform but has opened up a bit rate for more on what we have been watching, we are joined by brian barnes. even after that interview with vlad, many people don't understand why robinhood did this. want them to be more clear. i have never seen so much vitriol in my twitter feed. folks unhappy with his explanation. you instituted some sort of trading limits but were more clear about why. tell us why you halted some securities, and explain the rationale.

>> first, thank you for having me. not all of these brokerage platforms are the same. there is big difference between trading platforms and investing platforms. i think m1 is more geared for long-term, systematic investing. it is not a day trade platform. it is about designing a custom portfolio. and automating it read we have a more longform -- long-term oriented approach. the trading mentality, gamestop and amc has been less a core component of our business. yesterday, we hit about $75 million. it was money but it was not core to our business. due to market concerns, there were liquidity concerns across clearing firms. different oak ridge firms. specifically as it relates to

margin and options that basically shut down the way clearances have been happening. our clearing firm was wrapped up in that. due to concerns about liquidity needs, they shut off our access to trade certain securities and as a result we unfortunately had to do the thing for our customer base. that is a decision we wanted -- did not want to make, but they are our quarterbacking infrastructure provider. we were reduced access slightly retail -- much like the retail client. emily: apex is your clearing house. they said many limited action. are you one of those firms or only because of the restrictions apex put in place? >> from m1's perspective, it was

due to our clearing house. m1 is different versus long-term versus trading. our platform does not allow for intraday trading. it is less about buying options. it is about allocating to a platform. we only traded twice a day. -- trade twice a day. ultimately, everything went according to plan. we did not miss any transactions. at the end of the day, the true impact to our end-users was mitigated. that being said, in the middle of the day, it looked like we were going to be unable to trade solely as a rationale of apex. we informed our client base of that and have suffered the ramifications and i would say, rightfully so. we are the retail consumers access to the market and we had to in fort lee shut them out

like we were shut out -- unfortunately shut them out like we were shut out. emily: m1 has enjoyed a surge in popularity lately. robinhood, do they deserve in your view the backlash they are getting at this point? >> i think robinhood has done things incredibly well and been a big force in the industry. they have had mishaps. the wall street backed crew at reddit had one of the best trades in all time. it should go against george soros, breaking the bank of england. they were in the massive winning side of that that and the rules of the game were changed as they

were winning. i completely understand of a troll, -- the vitriol, the unfairness. when people go to a platform that is promoting trading, there is a reasonable expectation you can do that in many different market environments. emily: robinhood seems to be taking an outside share of the vitriol, because they have these other relationships which some people do not understand. do you think that is fair or do you understand the call robinhood made? >> i think the robinhood call, any other brokerage call was more or less because they had to. they lacked the liquidity for clearing the trades and placing the regulatory capital. they were exposed to massive risk. i think it is primarily due to

them incentivizing short-term trading and option trading. they had a platform that rose to prominence by making trading easier, options trading easier. people built up massive positions through minimal capital. as a result, their exposure blue up to the point where they were not capitalized to handle that level of business. i think that is very different than if we were to take an m1 where we would not have made that decision. we have not promoted option trading, short-term. we are geared toward long-term, systematic ownership. we have an investing mindset. you are trying to deploy money in the investing's -- investments you know and understand. we unfortunately did change the game due to the result of our access been removed. i think it is how the platform

has been pitched and how it has been ascended to prominence is the reason for the vitriol that exists. emily: in your view, what do you think needs to be changed about the system? what should a company like robin hood change or any of the others market participants? wall street bets doesn't seem to be going on anywhere and some are holding onto share just to prove a point even though they could sell them now and make a ton of money. >> it is a new phenomenon. this is not something we can relate to, sending that happened a year or two ago. when a platform rises to prominence, offering the ability to trade, option trade, and the like, getting access removed -- when someone needs it the most,

it is going in their favor, it does feel unfair. our users were hurt more than m1 was. the rules of the game are changed halfway through. if you are encouraging that behavior, you have to be able to support that kind of business. emily: we will keep our eyes on m1. thank you so much for joining us. coming up, tesla and apple, both companies continuing to slide in a broad retreat of equities. we will have a recap. this is next. -- this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: with all the gamestop drama, it is easy to forget some of the biggest tech names reported results. apple posting record sales but the outlook uncertain. tesla posting -- both companies with shares that are falling. i have to ask if you think the gamestop market action, whatever has been happening, impacted or put pressure on apple and tesla. would they be rallying if so much of the market was not focused on those names? >> that is a good question. i think i would say no. i think -- i feel like both

apple and tesla were at a point in time at which you had like a good near-term rally. like taking a breather, these make sense. when you got reporting from tesla, you had a disappointing gross margin. all of these things that are very technical and i find very boring but usually create that kind of pull back. nothing really -- apple, same thing. no q1 guide. slightly cautious tone. we are having at the moment -- i think management is making they do not set expectations a place

-- bringing together all the supply. it is a difficult environment. so they are setting the scene for another not very strong print. emily: apple has not been giving guidance for a few quarters. i wonder why folks are not used to that? it could be a long-term thing? >> i would say that i loved what tesla did, saying our long-term planning is to grow 60% per annum over time and sometimes more. this year, we might access that, exceed that. my expectation for tesla is they

can deliver one putting the cars out and delivering them, they can do a million cars which would be growing 100%. why would you guide? what is the point of being specific for a full year? i think it is a waste. i am a bit surprised the market is getting uncomfortable with that. maybe it is because the market thinks it is temporary. my recommendation, stop guiding fully. it is useful. they have already a few weeks. guiding when you are ahead i think is a waste of energy. >> i would not be surprised if it is something longer-term.

when they stopped reporting iphone numbers, it has been a couple years. what is pierre's guide? what is your nutshell outlook on apple and tesla for the year? >> for the year specifically, i think apple is very well-positioned. the iphone 12 cycle is very strong. it is 5g. customers cannot go to the restaurant, they spent a lot of money on higher and consumer economics they can buy on the internet. the supply chain is restrained. they are going to continue to -- once the big cycle comes through and demand is observed, we have to see what happens next. from tesla, as i told you, they have capacity already for one million cars. there supply chain can lead them

-- there is a bit of uncertainty. for me, tesla -- one million cars. that explains where the stocks are today. >> pierre, we will have to leave it there but i appreciate your outlook. still ahead, money can't buy everything, even when it is amazon and jeff bezos. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: breaking news, interactive brokers have lifted all curbs on options trading. interactive brokers like robin hood put some restrictions in place yesterday.

the company tweeting all restrictions have been lifted. robin hood has listed -- lifted all instructions but there are still some restrictions, you can only by one share of gamestop on robin hood. i am so curious for your take on this because many of the folks who cover are also part of this retail trading frenzy. i wonder if you can take us into some of these chat rooms, into the mind of some of these traders who could sell if they wanted but in principle want to prove a point. what do you think is happening here? >> thanks for having me. it is pretty fascinating to read this is the biggest story in the world right now. i have been watching this with bated breath as this is going down. coming at this from a videogame fan perspective, something that is interesting is a lot of these people are not big fans of

gamestop. i saw some chatter about -- from some investor minded folks saying, they are just nostalgic for their favorite store. no. gamers hate gamestop. gamestop is known for pushing preorders and mistreating you and buying your games back at low prices. in people's heads and why they are able to turn it into a meme and stick with it. they see this all as a joke, a practical joke on gamestop. emily: it is fascinating to read gamestop, 22 and a half billion dollar company. -- it is fascinating, gamestop a $22.5 billion company. why hasn't -- haven't amazon's

gaming properties taken off? >> they have decided to approach games the amazon one. take an amazon executive and say we are going to dominate the world. people in games talk about finding the fun. it is a common theme. making a game good, it is sitting down and experimenting and innovating. what amazon did is they tried to take their amazon principles which are very much about metrics and 16 page reports, having the numbers in front of you, and try to use that making games and that did not work. the guy they hired was an amazon lifer who had never made a game before. what happened, according to our sources, he surrounded himself with people who did not know games and did not listen to them -- didn't know games and did not

listen to them. -- who did know games and did not listen to them. emily: you saw amazon get out of the health business they try to start. but is this something you expect them to double down on? >> it is. reporters suggest they have spent many millions of dollars on this initiative. i don't see that stopping anytime soon, even though they have had false starts. jeff bezos, ceo of amazon, these gaming in a bullish light. -- views gaming in a bullish light. he would like to have games a part of their ecosystem. they got full starts with tv and then got some good stuff in there. he sees a similar path for videogame divisions. emily: thank you so much for your reporting and the color you brought to us. folks in the gaming industry and how they might be watching gamestop today.

that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." what a week. have a wonderful weekend, everybody. we will see you next week. ♪

david: populism hits the financial markets. is it a fluke, or does it point to something deeper? this week, special contributor larry summers of harvard. a: yes, there is retail fraud. not everything is done by short-sellers. it is especially attractive. david: bank of america ceo brian moynihan. brian: it's good people are investing. i think people have to be careful. we all know that. >> it is clear that this is not necessarily justified from a