♪ ♪ . joining us this morning is jon steinberg, ceo of the daily mail north america and slava rubin quo founder of indigo go, john forth on his way, all of us with us is kayla tausche. good to see everybody. begin with markets and talk about the fact we're off 200 points and the dow in the red, off triple digits and bob pisani is on the floor to tell us why.

>> what's important to put things in perspective. we hit a closing high the 29th, 2090, now at 2031, do the math, two down days essentially, december 31st and today, so the s&p is 2.5, 2.6% off its historic highs. a little revision in the earnings estimates with energy and that's the problem if you look at the sectors today, with oil down below $51, energy to the downside, materials, that's a concern on commodities discretionary and industrials. commodities at four-year lows. big energy, well your usual names, the 2 to 3% decline. that's a little unusual. 4% decline, schlumberger and halliburton down. what's the macro trend? the problem with today the macro trend for the last three months is working again today. so ten-year yields are moving,

the dollar index is at a new year high, the dollar index is going back for many years a new high, that's got to be a nine-year high for the dollar index, around there and crude keeps dropping. yields staying low, dollar staying strong and crude at new lows. the macro trend, traders watch and they keep staying with it as long as it keeps going. when it doesn't market stops. so fares those macro trends, the three ones, are working well for people who keep pressing that particular market. the question here, kelly and everyone, is what's going to change the conversation a little bit? two potential things. one is what's going on with the european union. european central bank at the end of january may change things. my personal feeling, u.s. corporate earnings is what's going to change the conversation. in a couple weeks we'll start hearing from u.s. corporations, they'll talk about how much better the u.s. economy is compared to the global economy and that may start cheering people up a little bit from

here. guys, back to you. >> we'll see, bob, thank you. with key levels to watch this morning. first up, a lot of buzz over a new piece by the former cto of tumblr on apple. apple has lost the functional high ground and writes apple's hardware today is amazing. it has never been better. the software quality has taken such a nosedive in the last few years that i'm deeply concerned for its future. he's making the argument that apple waits to release -- wants to release it for marketing reasons but updates are too soon coming leading to as host of technical problems each and every time. have you experienced this directly sp. >> marco is one of the most thoughtful apple software developers out there for ios and desk top. he was one of the original tumblr employees, he does insta paper as well. i had experienced this overfeaturing of the ios, thought it was me, read the post last night and saw people on twitter commenting that they were experiencing the stuff as well. i think it's a thing.

it is a real challenge apple is facing right now. >> marco makes the point that apple has been winning in its operating system because everything else in competition with it is so bad and is lacking so much quality. windows 10 next year and a question of whether apple can maintain that edge if it actually has these bugs. >> it is fair to say that apple operating system is as bad as windows was. >> i don't know if that's fair. the bar is high for apple and the people that ares fans. apple has a lot of things going on. the iphone, the ipad, the apple watch, the iwatch coming out, apple pay, home and health, coming out with beats. go back to the early days when jobs came back and said we're going to cut down on these things and focus on a few products. i think apple needs to think about, are they really just separating into too many things? they need to focus and make sure it's not just about marketing they need to be innovating on the software as well. >> apple has never been good at

cloud based software. no one on earth knows how to use icloud as they've moved to the desk top people are baffled and continuity which allows your devices to message between each other people are baffled. cloud becomes more of the part of the way we use our desk tops it's catching up to apple they're so fundamentally weak. they should have bought drop box when steve jobs, you know, offended them when they came to visit and said he was going to do it himself. >> hold the thought. breaking news. back at headquarters with our dominic chu. what's going on? >> so kelly, what we have here is morgan stanley in a press release saying that it has fired one of its wealth management associates here. this employee had been terminated and law enforcement and regulatory authorities have been advised because of misappropriation of data, meaning that he stole economic or client data. no evidence of economic loss to clients. it has been determined, though, that certain account information of approximately 900 clients

including names, account numbers, was briefly posted on the internet. morgan stanley detected this exposure and the information was promptly removed. morgan stanley staying that it has, again, terminated the employment of an employee for misappropriating client data. a lot of that data was posted to the internet but subsequently taken down. it affects approximately 900 clients and morgan stanley says right now there is no evidence currently of any economic loss to any client. a developing story. we'll bring you more details but for now, an employee fired at morgan stanley for sharing client data over public means. >> thank you. morgan stanley shares off 3%. i was going to say, for the backdrop as it to why the stakes are high, you have morgan stanley against, for example, merrill lynch in the effort to be the wealth management unit of the future. now perhaps it's not a zero sum game but there's a reason why something like this becomes a reputational risk when that moment that piece of the business is frankly for a lot of people the future. >> such a land grab for

advisors. a lot of the advisory shops are franchises that are associated with morgan stanley, smith barney or wells fargo, trying to gross its advisory unit as well as merrill lynch. as they are fighting with people making resolutions to get their financial house in order this could potentially have a reputational impact on morgan stanley, though we should note it does sound like it was a lower-level employee but the fact that a lower-level employee would have access to that information is a sensitive issue. >> cyber security thing into the new year is such a massive issue. we were're seeing it from tradil companies and studios traveling to the financial sector. always people who have access to the data that are the weak point. a financial adviser would need access to client data, 900 could have been the number the person worked with and the internet is a click away. you need firmer firewalls in place. >> thank you very much. again looking across the

financials, pressure across the board, to be clear, morgan stanley, though. moving on here, next up, the fcc expected to vote on major new rules governing the internet next month. the proposal revolves around net neutrality. that notion all on-line traffic should be treated the same with no sites or services given preferential treatment. it's unclear if the independent commission will listen to the president. the announcement this was going to happen came late friday. >> netflix responding saying they're talking about the payments they've been required to give isps like comcast and verizon. without those, isps allowed these connection points to congest resulting in poor video streaming. allowed to congest like in the passive test. what congested it? enormous amount of video. on one side of the coin somebody has to pay for this infrastructure upgrade. on the other side of the coin, imagine a world where verizon's

version of netflix and comcast's version is the only one you can get without buffering and they totally push netflix into a corner where it has no streaming ability. so there are two sides. >> slava? >> from a philosophic philosophical perspective this is challenging. you want the internet to be open to allow innovation, on the other side investment to keep improving the technology. it's going to be a tricky debate. the president wants to veto it. i think a common carrier might be an interesting ruling. using it as isp. if it becomes like a utility all of a sudden you will not get the investment to make netflix or other products to innovate bet per t er. it's a tricky conversation. >> given our internet is still behind lithuania in terms of speed, do you think some of these companies can claim they have been able to innovate and to invest so much and to a certain extent over the last few decades that we shouldn't have regulation of this? i'm playing devil's advocate here but i'm wondering how much

weight we can give to that argument? >> there should be more investment being done. to say all internet is equal is flawed. there's different content delivery networks underpinning under these companies making some faster than others. it's a nuanced argument being done at the political level right now. >> competition is the answer. if you look at the wireless space, i did a test with two networks op one lte network i pulled 40 gigabit, on the other 17 or 20. >> when you say here? >> inside the exchange just now. years ago you would seldom get over a few gigabits. the competition has definitely risen the speeds. in the broadband space we need to make it easier for people to get access to the polls, easier to get access to the thruways. competition is the answer. leg regulating them look what that did to the phone company and quality of cable. >> it's a complex issue. jon, you will stick around longer. slava, thank you for joining us

today. >> thank you for having me. >> happy it new year. >> when we come back hands on or off with audi's self-driving car. you can see our very own phil lebeau behind the wheel right now. he's heading from california to ces in vegas. look, ma, no hands. he will join us live from the highway to explain how it works in a moment. the collapse if oil prices changing roger mcnamee's outlook for the new year. he will join us to explain. stocks taking a hit, down by about 250 points on the dow. the worst start to the year, since 2008. "squawk alley" will be back in a minute. you're driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pick-up truck slams into your brand new car. one second it wasn't there and the next second... boom! you've had your first accident. now you have to make your first claim. so you talk to your insurance company and... boom! you're blindsided for a second time. they won't give you enough money to replace your brand new car.

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. welcome back. we are kicking off the new year on a decisively weak note. it's related in part to the energy space with oil prices again lower this morning. in fact, struggling to stay above $50 on wti. key downgrades to related companies like chevron. that coming from citi this morning. chevron off about 4%. one of the key reasons we're looking at the s&p off 1.4%. the dow down 239 points. also weighed down by caterpillar a downgrade from jpmorgan related directly and indirectly to its oil exposure. the drop in oil prices, not great news for everybody. >> which is interesting because we've seen drops in oil have different effects on the market depending on what day of the week it is and who's coming out and saying it's a good or bad

thing for the markets and, of course, today it has a bearish effect. >> and related interesting moves as well, some of the weakness we're seeing on the internet names including the netflixs of the world. the nasdaq down to the downside weighed down by a host of other issues. bertha coombs here. >> the nasdaq not quite as bad as the blue chips, nonetheless we are seeing the big caps weighed down and that is really a story about those big internet names today, with the congress set to set -- to take up net neutrality an not clear just how that's going to work out this year with the new congress, republican-led congress and the president. some of the big ones like netflix are under pressure. apple under pressure as well. chip stocks are a big source of the downward movement here today. they're all getting sold off. remember lately we have seen when there is a selloff, chips really take it hardest. biotechs often as well, but not today.

right now, in fact, while the nasdaq biotech index is fractionally negative, the nyse arca index is fractionally positive because we have a lot of big movers like isis pharma, that's what's holding up the nasdaq a little bit bitter than the blue chips. isis at a historic level today on a deal with johnson and johnson on a bowel drug. it is up at a historic level after gaining 73% last year. jim will have the ceo on this afternoon. back to you. >> all right. thanks so much, bertha. u.s. stocks are sharply in the red this morning with a renewed slide in oil prices sending energy shares to new los. joining us on the phone is jim he camp senior vice president at ubs. good morning. >> good morning. >> watching the markets to what do you attribute the steep slide we're seeing in stocks, if not to oil? >> well, some of it is going to be the unwinding of last year.

let's bear in mind, portfolio managers who were active in hedge funds, really underperformed the s&p 500 last year. so all towards the end of december, they were trying to play catch-up in the markets. they might be unwinding some positions they held on to, just to try to catch up on a performance basis. we saw the same thing happen last year. beyond that, the commodity sell-off is worth noting. the reason is, it might be a signal of global growth slowing down. we've seen numbers late last week of europe that were really bad. now they're talking about a possible greek exit with angela merkel being pretty harsh on the greek -- on the greek community there. so i think a lot of this is concerns. you're seeing the euro hit a nine-year low, oil hitting a six-year low and a lot is concerns ability a possible slow down of that global economy. >> jim, with the indexes near their averages or the upper ends of their averages over the historic term and everyone

saying earnings growth is where the stock market growth is going to come in the coming year where do you come out on that? do you think the earnings growth will be there to support these markets? >> well, bear in mind, in the u.s., we're a pretty closed economy. 13 and 14% export and imports. i think the u.s. can withstand a global slow down better than most think. i think we'll get pretty decent earnings growth. you can squibble with the quality of the earnings. a lot of share buybacks, merger and acquisition, and financial engineering in there, but we have seen revenues grow pretty nicely over the last two quarters. we think we can get 6% earnings growth if you tack on a little bit of multiple expansion because let's face it, there's no else for money it to go. interest rates globally are till very low. the picture remains the same here. some earnings growth and very low interest rates. >> jim, wondering as we sit at session lows here, the dow is off 259 points, this comes after

we heard from san francisco fed president john williams in dovish talk even more dovish than we're used to hearing from him about an hour ago, saying the fed should be patient, there's no need to make the tightening pace anything but gradual. they will be data dependent. he talks about concerns in the other markets, but we're seeing no response, it seems, in the markets to these remarks. what do you make of that? >> yeah. i think that's really interesting and i think he pointed out one of the big risks actually for the global economy this year and that is, if the dollar gets too strong against currencies that are too weak, particularly the yen and the euro, you could have some global disruptions there just because of the currency exchange. but i think he's also pointing out that we really, when you look at these global commodity prices, we have a deflation issue just as much as we have an inflation issue. we've been thinking that the if fed is going to stay low longer than people think. i think the markets is just doing what it did last january,

resetting a little bit, again we are still towards the high end of the ranges. i don't think this is any major signal or panic but than we need to be pushing here. >> yeah. it's worth noting volume was low last week. a lot of investors who are back on the floor today, so there's volume that wants to be put to work and a darth of data at least for today. people are focusing on oil in t and the euro, data coming out, namely the payroll figures and the jobs numbers and i'm wondering, given the relative strength of the u.s. market, do you think that a strong jobs number would put the u.s. markets back on green footing or do you think that that would really further this cas m between the u.s. and global markets? >>. >> i think it does further the cas sim a little bit but does help our markets. in this case, good news is going to be good news because we've been selling off for the last week. i think this will be a reminder that our economy is doing better than the rest and if you get that combination of a growing

economy and ultralow inflation that keeps interest rates very low, the equity should ultimately be the benefactor. we will have more volatility this year. we're going to have more disruptions this year, but by the end of the year money still has to find a place to go and you have liquidity, earnings growth, you have dividend yields there. equities should be the benefactor. >> limb lacamp appreciate you come coming to the phone this morning on a volatile trading session. hands off with the self-driving car. phil lebeau is behind the wheel on a road trip between california and las vegas. phil? >> hi, kayla. right now we are east of bakersfield, california, on california highway 58, which is a two lay-lane highway to take into nevada and las vegas. right now i'm driving hands free, foot free. i'm not controlling the gas or the steering. as we head into the mojave

desert. an audi a 7 piloted driving test car. you have a vehicle, their vision of the future, in terms of being able to drive in real world conditions. we've been passing cars, have other cars pass us, as we're driving down the road. i haven't had to control the steering wheel at all. there are 20 cameras and sensors built into this a 7 that allow it to survey the other traffic and then based on what's happening, it will be able to make a decision about whether or not we need to lane change. right now there's nobody in front of us. over here as i look out the window, our other cnbc van tracking us at this time. if we needed to make a lane change that vehicle would not let us do it because the van is there. if the lane is free the sensors can tell it's free and need to lane change on our own it will do that. the one question i get, a lot of people have been e-mailing, texting, tweeting saying, do i feel that it's safe and it's natural? i have to be honest with you,

this is essentially an extension of cruise control. i could not feel like this car is making decisions without me knowing what's going to happen. if i need to take control and here's an example of it, let's say i want to get off at this exit we're not, but if i wanted to, hit these two buttons at the bottom of the steering wheel and it comes out just a little bit and tells me i'm once again in charge of driving the car and there you go. this is a peek into the future in terms of what we're going to see not only from audi, but other automakers working on similar ultimate cruise control programs and what we'll see in the future, perhaps within 3 to 4 years, audi plans to have this within two years, for the ability for you to be on a long stretch of highway not having to control it holding the steering wheel or gas or doing else. it's pretty cool technology and it's proof that the future is coming when it comes to autonomous drive. >> phil with this paparazzi following him in the van next

door. how fast are you going? it's hard to tell and how fast would you feel comfortable going? >> well, we're doing the speed limit. that's part of the decision by audi as part of this test drive. they didn't want people going outrageously fast. we're doing the speed limit. right now we're doing 65 in this stretch of the highway. and it's comfortable. you know, i think the real question is going to come up at some point, kayla, will regulators be comfortable allowing this to be a feature people can buy in their cars. i'll be honest if i were driving along i could say i want to text and if i'm not paying ultimately attention behind the wheel are regulators going to be comfortable with that some. >> i know we have to go but i want to go back to what you said if you want to take control of the vehicle you have to press the two buttons. p that's what i wonder about -- >> no -- >> are you able to control the steering wheel and maneuver if you have to immediately without pressing those buttons?

>> yes. perfect example, i took control, no longer in piloted driving mode. that's when i put my hands on the steering wheel. you can press the buttons or take control similar to cruise control where if you take control of the gas and you accelerate or if you brake, then it goes off. but once again, i've decided i want them to be in control and back in piloted driving mode. >> wow. >> we will check in with phil again later on today and watch him as he reaches his destination. phil lebeau. >> high speed auto. >> phil has now beaten jane wells as having the best assignments, as if we thought it would never happen but phil has done the best assignment ever. >> it's not too late for you to join him. get one of these cars from new york to vegas. >> i should get google to give me one of their google cars to compete with the audi. >> don't get locked in a storage container. >> exactly. >> coming up still keeping our eye on the markets with the major averages down close to 1%. news in europe driving a lot of

the market action. that's what guys on the floor are saying. europe about to close. we'll see what kind of impact these will have on the markets. simon hobbs will join us. "squawk alley" will be right back. i know i have an 810 fico score, thanks to the tools and help on experian.com. and your big idea is hot dogs shaped like hamburgers? nope. hamburgers shaped like hot dogs. that's not really in our wheelhouse... you don't put it in a wheelhouse. you put it in your mouth. get your credit swagger on. become a member of experian credit tracker and find out your fico score powered by experian. fico scores are used in 90% of credit decisions.

breaking news. let's get to kate kelly at headquarters. >> hey, kayla, thanks so much. paul jones the long-time macro hedge fund closing a small futures fund that was his first to open in 1984, the tudor futures fund. it managed about $300 million i'm told. never had a down year. but in light of the expense of operating it and he wanted to focus on his company's flagship fund, tudor global bbi, tudor jones has announced to investors that he will close the tudor futures fund. a couple comments from him in terms of his position and thinking. he says the fund size is modest, in a recent letter to investors, relative to the support required for its operation. he goes on to say, i'll continue to manage the firm's a flagship

fund, i am and will continue to be the largest risk taker for that fund as far as i can see into the future, trying to allay any questions about a possible retirement. one more thing the bbi global fund which manages around $11 it billion, is up about 3.5% through late december according to recent hedge fund reports. that's the news on paul tudor jones. >> thank you very much. i'll pick it up there. an update on morgan stanley with mary thompson at headquarters. >> hey there, kelly. this concerns, of course, the information that was stolen data that was stolen from 900 wealth management clients. the firm declined comment. morgan stanley declined comment but a person familiar with the situation says that morgan stanley discovered the data was stolen on december 27th through a regular scan the firm conducts through suspicious websites. according to the source the firm's analysis suggests there were few hits on this information, which included, among other things, some of the clients' account numbers, telephone numbers, names, as well as states of residence.

morgan stanley will provide these clients with new account numbers as well as credit monitoring services. the source says it took morgan stanley less than 24 hours to connect the stolen information with the former completion the employee who has been let go, and while they are not positive about motive, they suggest or sch suspect it possibly had to do with the employees desire to sell it to people who could have use is it for nefarious sources. this information couldn't be because it didn't include things like social security numbers. law enforcement officials have been contacted. the source declined to say who they were but you can assume it includes the fbi. back to you. >> thank you very much. got to draw your attention to what's happened. oil in the u.s., the wti, benchmark, falling below $50 for the first time since 2009. that move largely predicated on what was happening with the global recession at the time. guys, this move, much more it to

do with the transformmational drop we've seen in the oil space over the last six months. fracking, is it the global slowdown? questions why and the effect it's going to have. >> $40 a barrel is the line in the sand when analysts expect there to be some turmoil in the credit markets, when some of the capital structures of energy and production companies could potentially breakdown and when you see technical levels breached in oil, it's tough to find a bottom. >> that deutsch bank report from a couple months ago saying watch -- i think the $60 point, $60 market at that point. it's happened swiftly it seems we couldn't know, it's been almost early quiet. starting to be a trickle of news flow from the local press and smaller cap names. the price action takes into account the massive declines but you have to wonder now that we've fallen below 50, what kind of impact this is going to have. >> back and forth whether it's good for the consumer or too painful to other industries.

jc penney up 2% when i looked at it, now up 2.3%. people thinking they're going to have more discretionary income. >> some of the oil companies in texas, louisiana and oklahoma saying we're worried about layoffs. companies wanted to get beyond christmas. now that we're into the new year the ax could be be falling in this industry. >> we saw it with sivio before the holiday. they're related to a number of people working in this industry. we'll keep an eye on it and see if it continues to fall below the $50 benchmark and whether brent crude might be next. john stein berg thank you. >> thanks for having me guys. >> let me know about ces. >> i'm not going. >> bring in simon hobbs, to count down the close across europe which people say has something to do with the red in the u.s. >> this is a very nasty session, just take a moment to pause on -- actually, can you go back to the full screen so people can see the detail on it more. these are heavy losses in europe. for example, italy down 5%.

germany down 3%. greece will have its lowest close in two years. understand the magnitude of the sell-off in europe today. two main stories, one is the greece elections on the 25th. germany having to step back president suggestion over the weekend that it might be happy for greece to exit the eurozone and, of course, the other major event you have is the european central bank meeting on the 22nd and rising expectation given what draghi said last week there will be qe. it pushed the euro down, the big headline coming into today's session, below $1.20. a nine-year low. we're trading at $1.19. this is no surprise. it is the main ininstrument that the ecb should be able to influence and able to boost exports or export earnings in an open economy than here in the united states. but actually the biggest move, the biggest thing that people are grappling with is the move on oil on the way in which i mentioned it earlier, happening

here, you saw it there, the big oil maimers for maybe the second or third session actually beginning to take substantial hits. look at bp, down over 5%. total down 6% in france. these are very heavy weighted stocks within europe and that's why in part you've had such a bad day. i should mention that mining stocks, many of them quoted in london, they've also been down as you see that whole commodities complex, copper or nickel, in negative territory. the other major dynamic through the session, not at the beginning or halfway through, but as we close out, the sell-off in some of the eurozone banks. i know they had a downgrade today. these are exposed the australian bank to russia and eastern europe, down really quite heavily. i think the biggest dynamic moving forward is going to be the question of qe and at what point people start jumping ahead and saying is it enough? because at the moment you have an open promise to keep bond

yields down. >> that's what we heard in boston, you had guys like marty feldstein say tell me what this is going to do. >> the realization it may not boost the economies, however much they announce, whatever they do, people will say is it enough? that will be potentially -- that's the major dynamic that will probably work its way through. it was always going to be that way. >> we've gotten beyond the conversation of will they or won't they. >> we haven't quite. we should wait for them to announce it perhaps. >> you will be here when they don't. >> i won't. i'm going to the west coast. >> of course. timely trip. >> going to ces. >> i know. >> apparently driving with you in a google car. >> we're going in a google car to ces, yes. >> thanks as always. back to oil, crude falling below $50 a barrel. 5 1/2 year lows, fresh ones that they're hitting today. jackie deangelis is at the nymex with more. >> good morning, kayla. that's right. very remarkable selling pressure here in the pits this morning.

traders are telling me if we see a close under 50 this is a key psychological level. it would be paramount. what's adding pressure to the market. the strengthening of the dollar, dollar index over 91, projected to go to 100, is definitely going continue to add pressure to crude prices. it's the supply demand balance. fresh worries over what's happening in the eurozone with greece is leading people to believe that demand just will not be there in 2015 at the same time, we have more data points out showing us that supply continues to ramp in russia, also in the middle east, and you've got opec standing firm. right now, the question is, who is going to blink first, how low do we have to go, how bad does the pressure have to get in terms of pricing to make somebody pull back on production and will it be the u.s. players? we've had some signals of it, but nothing too significant yet. you mentioned $40 range in terms

of sort of putting pressure ones u.s. producers. it definitely will. traders are saying we could go to the 40s here in the next few months, potentially see that $33 low that we haven't seen since 2009. and you also talked about consumers. i want to bring to your attention the if fact that aaa says that consumers, because of the falling gas prices, save $14 billion in 2014 if they continue to fall or stay low they will save another 50 to $75 billion. so really significant in terms of what we're seeing in oil places and gas prices for the economy and we'll continue to monitors this. like i said under $50 today a close and we are going lower from there. back to you. >> jackie deangelis, thank you so much. big moves in the oil space today. for more joining us now from palo alto, roger mcnamee, co-founder of elevation partners. great to have you where you have thoughts on oil as well, don't you? >> i do. i want to give a big hat tip to jon forth on this. last time i was on three weeks

ago we had a conversation, as you know, i've been very cautious about the market. i've been concerned that we had run out of good news and the complacency had been set in. jon made the important point there were a bunch of things that might happen and one did. and that is the collapse of the price of oil which i think is, at least to me, was an unexpected dividend for the u.s. economy. that i think is very profound. oil and gas exploration only employs about 225,000 people in the united states, so the concerns that this is going to hurt our economy on the employment side i think are unfounded. i think it's just playing a huge winfall for consumers and i think in an environment where interest rates are incredibly low, where inflation is incredibly low and where economic growth in the united states is okay, to better than okay, this is going to give investors a reason to not worry and to be more confident about the future. i now think that the probability

is that the level of speculation that we've seen in the economy or in the market, excuse me, will continue for a while and that we might even get a really nice speculative blow off here as people can sit there -- they have all the things that haven't happened in so long, it's different this time, which is always the kiss of death, but if you will, i think that we'll hear that before we're done and so i'm personally, i remain -- my portfolio remains conserve this positioned. i don't have as crystal ball here but it does feel like the weight of evidence supports a more positive outlook than i had a month ago. >> we have viewers tweeting in roger saying and remember energy is only 10% of the s&p, so perhaps it won't have the effect on the stock market, but someone's gain is always someones else's pain. at the levels we're at right now, we've gone beyond the point of consumers saving money and people talking about instability in the markets and that doesn't worry you?

>> that doesn't worry me at all. so few are harmed by that. the way i look at this, we shouldn't kid ourselves. energy is only 10% of the market. i think that as a consequence the collapse of those stocks is not necessarily a bad thing. but you saw the aaa numbers you mentioned a moment ago. i mean this is tens of billions of dollars going into the per month going into the pobtss of consumers -- >> the only -- >> there's no way that's not good for the economy. >> if we hadn't just gone through 2008 and 2009 i don't think there would be as much a question and concern from people who say wait a minute, how can i trust that the risk s emanate from the financial system -- >> i'm not recommending people invest in the market. >> you remain worried because of the small relative number of people. the issue from that crisis it wasn't about how many people were employed at the home builders, it was the interconnectedness and the way that took down once prices fell -- >> the financial system --

>> no no the problem in 2008 was that hundreds of thousands of americans had mortgages that were, essentially, fraudulent and they had their saves -- >> in other words, at that point the asset price that was falling was housing. now you have an asset price related to oil and gas -- >> everybody can -- >> totally different -- >> explain why those are different. >> the issue in 2008, and again, i believe we will have a 2008 like end to this cycle when it comes. i just think it's not going to happen this week. it's going to come in some future moment. but fundamentally you get the market collapses in 2008 because first of all, we had ridiculous behavior, mortgages given to people who could not possibly pay them back and on top of that, the financial industry create created fraudulent, synthetic mortgages with no collateral behind them, packaged them and sold them to pension plans around the world. >> but there are pension

funds -- >> blew us up -- >> energy related assets. that's my only point. not that there are similarities between that piece but with regard to an oil and gas prices drop, when everybody who expected it would be 100 bucks now sees it below 50 that it's fallen in half, what kind of knock on effects will that have for people holding these assets -- >> again i don't expect them to be huge because you have not seen the kind of synthetic products created around energy that you saw created around mortgages. >> right. >> i don't see baskets of synthetic instruments being sold to gullible pension managers around the world. i think everybody, you know, the oil and gas market is not a place where that's been going on. i just don't see that risk right now. again, my basic point of view here is, we have low interest rates, we have a decent economy, very low inflation and now you have this oil and gas dividend and those things on balance are requesting going to create a

positive environment for financial investments other than oil and gas for at least the immediate future. >> understood. roger, thank you for being here. roger mcnamee of elevation partners this morning. appreciate it. this chart shows you all you need to know about twitter and facebook last year. the stocks trending in opposite directions in 2014. could a new strategy change that in a market like this? robert peck will join us when "squawk alley" comes right back. you total your brand new car. nobody's hurt,but there will still be pain.

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coming up on the half we crown the winner of our trader of the year competition. how joe beat the pack and what our panelists are picking this year. barry banister reveals his top investments for 2015, investor david westin, we're talking all the big names and whether a big deal is in the cards this year. kayla, see you in about ten minutes or so. look forward to it. >> thanks, scott. the new year bring positive trends for facebook, amazon, netflix, pandora, according to a report by sun trust robinson humphrey and survey monkey. what does 2015 look like? joining us at post nine sun trust managing director and analyst bob peck. happy new year to you. >> happy new year to you. >> give us the highlights of this survey and why you think facebook, pandora, netflix, others could see positive momentum.

>> we poll every month about 1500 people and make key trends, survey monkey, david goldberg, and what's interesting when you follow the trends over time you get key issues. one of the big bear thesises is facebook is not cool with the young people and not using it. when you look at the data, though, that's not true at all. you see very high usage levels that continue along and have been steady around 75% or so. >> maybe a higher age median for those users in that demographic? >> interestingly what we do is break it apart. do an index on any age and then a younger only. so 13 to 24 or so and look at that younger demo facebook still has 75% or so. you see more usage of snap chat, instagram, getting used in there, but the fact that the younger user isn't abandoning facebook is the key. >> what about -- >> i was going to say how about the fact that we had instagram which is one of the best purchases by facebook, surpass twitter in terms of monthly active users.

>> i agree. it's been on fire. one of the best buys of all time and so when you add that to facebook's users you see they're dominating the top two categories there. the third player snap chat has been on fire. >> we had nick of the new york times on a couple weeks ago and he said maybe twitter needs to understand its core audience is an intellectual one, not going to be a mainstream property and maybe monthly active users are at their peak or near their peak. do you think that twitter should work on refining and engaging its audience or think it can still grow that base of users. >> we put a note out today on twitter. its business development deals they have some in place but think they're signing more. a great example look at the espn app and see twitter is built in there as one of the three tabs. now we think they're in the midst of signing more of these deals that accelerates their monthly active users and it's not being monetized. monetization as well. deals like that, not to mention monetizing the 500 million not

logged in which we also talk about gives more lift about a 10% lift to ebitda. >> you think they need a leadership change up top. >> we sent a note about a week or ago, the top question we get, should dick end up leaving? who would be a good replacement. neil mow han at google would be fantastic or ross levinton ex-ceo of yahoo! >> jason goldberg, twitter shareholder of fab.com arguing that twitter should sell, google should be the owner of this company. is that potentially an end game for this company? >> you fink about what what tths is it's real time search looking for live news. i think they looked at buying twitter several times before it went public. now it would take a sizable check to get that done. i don't know if that's likely in the near term but not lost on them. >> a make or break year for a lot of companies. we'll be hearing more from you. appreciate having you. >> let's send it to meg terrell

at headquarters. >> looking at gilead, giving the preferred status to the drugs. its hepatitis c drugs. a turnaround from when we saw gilead excluded from express scripts plan on the drugs that have been controversial because of their price tags seeing another pharmacy manager, cvs, saying it will exclusively cover gilead's sovaldi status. they say the competing hepatitis c drug will only be available through medical exception or prior authorization, driving up gilead shares, driving down abbvie's now. >> a lot of moves in that space. when we come back, check out the price of oil, watching it all morning, continuing to slip as crude moves closer to the key $50 a barrel mark at 50.25.

we will get rick santelli's take when we come back on "squawk alley." .

welcome back to "squawk alley." rick santelli with monday's rendition of the santelli exchange. i was going to talk about interest rates and we'll get to it, but i was led somewhere else. robert mcnamee on talking about the dark side of some of these synthetic financial products that have caused housing and energy to collapse. i like his word but think his

word order is not exactly the same word order i would use. because to me, if you're looking at synthetic to be the dark side, it's because of the synthetic capital that gets woven into the properties. you couldn't do any of that withouts the synthetic liquidity. whether it was the mortgages and the sib threatic rates of the gses or now with all the capital created by various programs to the central banks, remember it was always about main street and wall street. so as i look at energy, i can't help but think what's going on is going to hurt investors. absolutely. but investors have reaped pretty much all the rewards over the last several years. why? because they had access to the synthetic liquidity. main street didn't. how is this going to play out? whether the bottom of oil is 49, 48 or 31, i'll tell you the way i think it's going to pan out. first of all, any of the data

you get about what saudi arabia is pumping or venezuela or russia do you think there's a lot of accuracy. at the end of the day when you have something worth money evens less, you will probably sell more of it. but let's get back to main street and wall street. this can take a toll over here. but it's going to be wonderful for main street. ultimately, this unlike housing, when housing dropped, if after the crisis, people could get access to credit, if the transmission worked that the central bank underestimated they would have looked around and seen cheaper prices and maybe they could have tried to pick some bottoms. they don't need to worry about that at the pump. you don't need a loan to fill up your car. but let's look at one more issue. we've talked about other acronyms, the one i like is tina, there is no alternative. the whole premise behind tina is that the synthetic money gets puts to a use, whatever that use is, everybody barrels in and

there is no alternative to whatever that is. losses in energy are real, and it's going to take tina on a bit of a detour. back to you. >> i thought you might pick up that on that. rick santelli, thank you this morning. kayla, what's the brent price, fed included in its stress test for oil? >> $110 a barrel, the hypothetical stress scenario. >> ironic now. >> thank you so much. that's it for "squawk alley." it is noontime on the east coast, we're going to take a short break and get straight to the ""fast money half time report."

and welcome to the halftime show. let's meet our starting lineup. stephanie link the coportfolio manager of jim cramer's charitable trust joe terranova at adver ts tis investment partner and josh brown rid holtz management and john najarian co-founder of option munster with us paul richards head of fx at ubs and dan dicker joins us on the phone to talk about that story today and our game plan looks like this, t