lower, well under $52 a barrel. crude is falling while the dollar is softening and many are concept all of the opec cut. many players are staying the course. the issue of uncertainty. the oil market hates it like the equity market. >> good morning, it is 4:00 p.m. at snaps new international headquarters in the uk. "squawk alley" is live.

kayla is live at the 2017 ideas festival in san francisco, and joining us also at one market, brett taylor, a cocreator of google maps, and from palo alto, good morning to everyone. jeff sessions in the hot seat on capitol hill facing the senate judiciary committee on day one. john harwood is in washington watching that. >> we're now past the opening statements and into the questioning of jeff sessions under a question from dianne feinstein, the veteran democratic from california. jeff sessions just said that legalizing abortion four years

ago was wrong. he says he respects the law of the land and that is the law of the land. the most prominent charge is the one that sunk his nomination in 1986 to be a federal judge under ronald reagan, and that is that he harbored racial animous. >> i was accused in 1996 of failing to protect the voting rights of african-americans. and of condemning civil rights advocates and organizations and even harboring, amazingly, sympathies for the k.k.k., these are false charges. >> that is how jeff sessions will address that issue. there is more questioning from other democrats. my assessment is that it is quite likely he will be confirmed as the attorney

general, but this process is just getting under way, guys. >> we look forward to more q and a tomorrow. brett and josh, civil rights for the moment, but this will turn to cyber security in the two-day confirmation hearing. what are you expecting on that front? what questions or answers will you be listening for? >> we want to understand what sessions policies will be around cyber security. monitoring, what they require of companies built in the united states and foreign companies. we worry it changing from the policies under the obama administrati administration. >> encryption has been a problem, how is his his justice

department going to respect that. >> we're still in a wait and see attitude. we're optimistic that the administration will have the interest of the customers in mind as well. i think all of the customers today care about the integrity of their data, the privacy of their data, and being able to abide by all of the regulatory constraints around the world. we're waiting to see and i'm optimistic of the incoming administration will have the interest of the american companies in mind. >> certainly a lot to unpack in the next couple days. >> they will get to all of that in due course. meanwhile, in corporate nice, the end is near for yahoo, at least in name. they will change their name to altaba. yahoo will also scale down the

board, marisa meyer stepping down. i know you're watching that and the jokes about the name aside, a lot of questions, john, you have been watching this as well. meyer's future might still be within verizon. >> right, first we have to clear up the after math of what it has been. what might it get done, and marisa meyer, a mover and shaker, even though she wasn't able to turn around yahoo is a stain on that resumé. we'll see if she joins the board of a major retailer or something similar.

>> with yahoo, she did a lot of interests work. i expect her to take a little time off to reflect on the journey, but she is one of the best product thinkers of our time. >> legacy, brett, when we think about her tenure and what they have for the company now versus in 2008. >> hindsight is 20/20. i think the most -- the craziest thing for me, when i started my career out of stap ford, two of the fastest growing companies were sun and yahoo. and it really shows the

vulnerability of technology companies with significant shifts and the platforms we use. i think every single company in our nation is really under going these transformations with internet of things and mobile. and it is really, really changing. i worked for marissa for about five years. i think yahoo was maybe unfixable when she arrived, and maybe it should have been sold sooner, but i think there was no point in reflecting on what could have been, and i think while symbolic, the name change is sad. they are one of the first generations of internet companies and i'm sad to see it go. >> it doesn't make sense to obsess of a trend you just missed because the thesis was

that koogle was the big competitor. now micro soft is competing with amazon. he ran the cloud business and the stock is up on that. if they got yahoo and competed with google, they might have missed what they have now, right? >> i think that is entirely right. there has been leap frogs from search to mobile to social, and now we're looking at the next waves. the frame of augmented reality, how the frames and glasses change how we see the world. how they power that, virtual reality, all of the things on the internet of things. what happens when all of our devices are emitting data and are connected. the companies that go in will not win in social, they'll when on new trends and provide the

products that we start to use every day. big companies are all fighting to use that as well, but i think there is still room for legacy companies and new ones to define the generation. >> jp morgan making it a top pick for 2017, they point to strong engagement. they say the fears about fake news and metrics essentially being overdone. can you take off your former facebook hat and should that be worrying? >> we were just talking about companies failing to make transitions. i think their strongest attribute is how capable they are of change. it went from a social network in colleges to one that operates globally. and now they're investing

heavily in ai, internet access, and other very significant initiatives. i think they continue to demonstrate a strong management team, and they're capable of seeing and responding, i'm biassed, but i think it is a really strong company. >> how closely is the rest of the video and content eco system going to be watching with the mid role advertising. then having the ability to toss and add in there. it is different from what we see on you tube, but it could change a lot of things. >> the sheer massive number of users on facebook, but it has not been a place for video owners to advertise at all. they prefer you tube where they can make a bunch of revenue.

i think we will see them shift more of their efforts to facebook and start placing an emphasis on having people come to facebook to watch their videos. if they are a real destination for video viewing, then watch out. i think there will be a massive increase in what they can do and become as a business and destination. >> how do we know if that happens. we heard about the revisions and metrics that facebook is using to measure particularly video. how well is facebook really doing when it coming to engagement. a view for a second or three is one thing, are people really bearing down and engaging on multiple videos on facebook? >> i think the measure is that they're customers. if the end users like the experience, if the advertisers are getting the value they want

out of it. my perspective being that at sales force we're partnering with companies using our marketing cloud. i look at my per sective and i see if they're all getting the results they want from that platform. i think as long as that feed back is there, i think at the end, they will work themselves out just by the results that the advertisers and users are getting from the process. >> certainly they're used to complications and all sorts of distribution channels, television not excluded from that, thanks, brett and josh. >> in the meantime, we have new figures out on 2017, obama care enrollment, 11.5 million people signed up through the 24th of december. that is up almost 300,000. the government entity that

overseas the program is encouraging people to sign up despite the uncertainty. as we go to break, take a look at where we stand this morning, the dow, 59 points from dow 20k. when we come back, kayla will sit down with governor tim pawlenty. later we go live today two of the jp morgan health care conference and talk to the ceo of renerjon. you do all this research

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welcome back to "squawk alley." you have 200 ceo's in the aud yenls, but yesterday it was all about cyber security. what grade would you give companies on attacking tieber security where it is rooted, and

where would you give the government for working. >> you need it to be open, and they're kpaching up t-- keeping with the original intent. the good news is that we're on the precipice of breakthroughs that will help. >> when i look at the agenda, or the list of priorities, tax reform, retirement security planning, housing finance reform, trade, it reflects a lot of the priorities. >> the administration is in favor of recalibrating the deployment of it, but the

economy is stagnant, and you need to employ more into the department and we need responsible actions by final services to help with lending and investment. >> your reaction about border adjustability, territorial taxes, leaving forgiveness out of the question. >> there is a lot of those discussions yet to come, but foreign earnings, how you treat them, and i hate to say it, but it is low hanging fruit. now they're just arguing about what should the rate be. i think the harder part is tax

reform. >> banks are not necessarily the largest importers of goods, but they have call senators, investment bankers, do you think there will be finish for them to bring jobs back? >> it is something that will be part of two discussions, twhaun is a tax issue. and trump view of america first, it will effect us more than labor, and that is technology. how do we take care of people and make sure they're employed and have chick kmuk when they take more and more blue color and white color jobs. >> one of the people that may be well tasked with that is steve. he has been called a foreclosure

machine. what do you think are his chances of getting confirmed? >> his chances are good. the republicans can confirm without democratic votes anyone they want. so they have some republican defections, but he took over a very troubled organization, they had a lot of trouble. . he was accused of bad things, he will get confirmed and i think he has all of the skills and background experience. >> i remember you telling me you hope that the president-elect would release his tax returns, and he didn't. are you satisfied with his disclosure? >> there is a threat hold they have to comply with, and i think they will, and it seems like

that is taking place on different levels of speed. it breaks a modern tradition of people running for president, making their tax returns available. he broke from that. he is basically saying i'm not going to because i don't have to. >> everyone is moving on, so i guess i will have to, too. >> always appreciate your time, and your perspective on everything going on in washington. >> thank you, back to you in the studio. >> when we come back, live today two of the jp morgan health care conference with the ceo of regeneron. then mario gabelli will join scott. the dow up almost 60.

welcome back to "squawk alley." let's go back to the jp morgan health conference in san francisco. >> john, thank you so much. we're joined by dr. schriffer. i want to start by talking to you about a pipeline drug that many people think is under valued. >> it is our drug that addresses allergic diseases. they are an epidemic that have been accuracying every year. bad asthma, alert allergies to drugs and all sorts of things.

they might impact the diseases, and we think they might be able to do that. we hope the first approval will come at the end of march. monitor to severe top of dermetitus. we want to follow that with hopefully more data on asthma, working on nasal pallups. >> in your presentation, yesterday, you said the industry doesn't office put the patients

first. >> we try to live that. members of the national academy of sciences. we're both ph.ds. prices go up so dramatically and make it hard for patients to get access to drugs. that is a difficult situation. and more personal note. they went after an injunction which is an unprecedented situation where they want to take a drug off of the market. why not just wait.

we ask you just wait until the appellate court can really view this. we think they can wait. >> in terms of pricing, we heard that the system incentivizes the drugs. >> the best example of all, of doing it right, is to come out with a fair price. when we priced our drug, if you use it on label versus the competitor, it would have been half as expensive. our drug was priced lower than the best drug. now we are the market leader. it is getting the first price right.

how did k it be later the value goes up. that, to me, is the sort of stuff that we have to get rid of. he said he is not going to raise his druks higher than cpi. >> he says he doesn't like what happened with drug prices and he wants to bring it down. >> it is hard to predict how they will do it. the head of hhs, dr. price, i think he gets the point that he wants patients and doctors to make the choices. i don't think he wants to improve -- i think the administration will look to see is the industry doing their part? if not, that is the big fear, that they will try to step in and impose prices. we need to get this right ourselves. i don't want them to come in and

do this. i don't want incentives to be taken away. drugs that can make people see when they're blind, curing aids or hepatitis, we need all of those drugs. but we need a system that incentivizes us, rewards them, and responsibly incentivizes them. coming up on the halftime report, the valiant ceo. markets are pabt to close here in the u.k. and across europe, recovering from earlier lows, the ftse rising to a new record high, extending the win streak to 11. data showing the chinese producer prices hitting five-year highs. u.k. super market chains also

leveling. helped by the return of food inflation according to the research firm kentar. nine records in a row from the ftse. >> indeed, when we come back, the latest from the jeff sessions confirmation hearing on capitol hill. >> later we go to icr's annual retail conference where they sit down with a round table of restaurant executives. more ""squawk alley" after this. , ideas, even actual trades with market professionals and thousands of other traders? i know. your brain told my brain before you told my face. mmm, blueberry? tap into the knowledge of other traders on thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade.

we're attacking you to jeff sessions in front of the judiciary talking cyber security. >> the defense department and how we as a nation have to react to that, which would include developing some protocols when people breach the system and a price is paid even if we can't prove the exact person who did it. >> i have known you for 15 years now, we had a lot of contests on the floor, sometimes we agree, sometimes we don't. i'm from south carolina, so i know what it is like to be accused of being a conservative from the south. it means something other than you're a conservative from the

south. people try to label you as a racist or bigot. how does that make you feel? and this is your chance? >> that does not feel good. >> they need to be stopped. [ yelling ] >> if nothing else, i'm clearing the room for you. i would suggest that the freedom of speech also has some courtesy to listen. senator gram, i appreciate -- >> that is ind si gram. the police have had their hands

full this morning, they said that allegations of arable animosity are what they called an unfair character. >> he kept his demeanor calm through the repeated interruptions. i don't think it is an issue coming up, karl, that i wanted to flag, plengt trump said in the campaign that he is going to push for the prosecution. over the e-mail situation after the election if he won. i think it is unlikely that it is going to happen. the president-elect signals that himself. the issues do arise in the

department of justice. he said he will rescues himself from consideration of those because the comments that he, himself, sessions, made during the campaign would impair the appearance of objectivity. i think that this is something that is not likely to arise in practice. i don't think president-elect trump intends to pursue, or that the department of justice would pursue a prosecution. but if it arises, he will rescues himself. >> thank you, john harwood in washington. the down is up, let's go to sue herera. >> iran and western powers meeting in vienna. they will review iranian complain complaints. thousands attending the

funeral ceremony for rafsanjani. it was followed by a procession through the streets of the capital. he died of a heart attack on sunday at the age of 82. >> it will cost more for customers to upgrade to a new phone. this is in addition to the activation fee when a new line of service is setting up. and fifa will expand the world cup to 48 teams adding 16 extra nations for the 2016 tournament. 16, three team groups, with the top two advancing to a round of 32. it was unanimously approved by the fifa council today. they are projecting an increased profit of $640 million. back downtown to "squawk alley." thank you when we come back,

what microsoft's nadella says about working with the government. and what are you watching rick santelli? >> let's go with that, the best day for transports, the s&p is up, but they didn't look that way before the market open, it could not be the sentiment index, could it? tune in after the break and we will answer that very question.

coming up on the halftime report, a fight is forcing goldman sachs to sell. onset live for the hour. also exclusive interviews with the ceo's of allegan and valeant. will the dow hit 20,000 in the next hour? we're watching the dow and the tape. we'll see you then. >> two key checktives from the world of finance and technology. let's go back to kayla with the details. >> this is the first of it's

kind. for every conversation they're having about innovation on the strigs, there is a conversation going on about cyber security and how they can prepare for a large scale cyber attack. in a wide ranging conversation, master card ceo discussed the need for the u.s. to be a first mover, to be a leader. here is what was discussed yesterday in that conversation. >> you need better cooperation before, during, and after a cyber event, and while some strides have been made in that pace, we're still in the initial stages of getting it right. >> the sony movie that the north koreans didn't like for awhile. we put it up, and we didn't know what was going to happen.

right? but the one fascinating thing is the amount that was there, there was the one time there was very good cooperation. >> that movie was the interview released by sony. you can see how hard it is to come by cooperation. they said that these companies are only has strong as their weakest link. 70% of individuals have not changed their password since they first signed up for banking accounts. as for the hot topics, the first is block chain. they say they are settling cross border payments and they have been able to limit the time of settling to five minutes. the other hot topic, driverless

cars. how will they ensure driver lis cars, but perhaps the most controversy, is when you have driverless cars for people who have been drinking or are trying to do work in the back of the car, they need to solve car sickness. very interesting, we'll have more throughout the day and i will send it back to you. >> that is fascinating, thank you. let's get to the cnn group. >> hi, carl, a fascinating day, if you're into the markets the way that i'm in the markets, sometimes you learn new things no matter how long you have been observing. before i get into that, i want

to get into market, if you start a chart when they first open, they all spent time today early in negative territory. so what changed? you never know, you never get a memo from people saying this is why i did what i did. i'll make a stab at it. first bit of proof, let's look at the national federation of independent business. let's put the chart up. the highest level since '04. let's look at the university of michigan sentiment. the clear winner on the comparison is the conference boards consumer confidence. let's look at that, august of 2001. now listen, i understand that confidence is kind of a fairy dust and it is not easy to quanti quantify. it is more than hope, but less

than fact. there in lies the problem, market logic is hard to explain. i'm going out there saying there are many out there that say we have go too far too fast. it doesn't necessarily have to be true. markets don't have to only move and stick on what we touch, but it can touch on a common since way that is more than hope but less than fact. where we think all of the events can line up in a realistic fashion down the road. back to you. >> rick santelli, thank you. when we come back, a fast food restaurant executive round table. and video to show you from moments ago, mike pence meeting with toyota's ceo. of course toi owe that the judge

of that trump tweet last week. we're back after a break. enjoy your phone! you too. all right, be cool. you got the amazing new iphone 7 on the house by switching to at&t... what??.... aand you got unlimited data because you have directv?? (laughs to self in disbelief) okay, just a few more steps... door! it's cool!

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alley." i'm at the icr consumer conference in orlando, florida. we are joined now by a special round-table of restaurant and fast food ceos. we've got steve, red robin ceo

d dani post, and ceo russ bendel. it's a great time to talk to you before the election there was talk of a restaurant recession. now the stocks are up. there's hope of lower taxes and higher consumer spending. has the outlook totally changed? >> i think it's interesting because whatever traditional measures we've used in the past, like the correlation between consumer confidence and guest traffic doesn't yet to have appeared. i don't know if it's the new pressure that the ghas has on our wallet with regards to data costs and health care and the auto may bought last year or whether they're still in a wait and see mode. but everything would tell us that we should expect a strong year ahead and begin a recovery certainly consumer confidence alone. >> steve, is that what you're seeing? >> yes. i would have to agree with that. i have been seeing a strong change yet but i think everyone is cautiously optimistic, especially with appointments

like p ur zer. >> one of your own. >> certainly reflects what the restaurant industry is experiencing as far as minimum wage is concerned. and also all of the regulations we go through and trying to get stores built. so i think that's cautiously optimistic for us. >> do you think he will get confirmed? >> i don't think it will be without its issues but it will be certainly interesting. but i think having someone like andy as an advocate for not only restaurants but small businesses is a good thing. >> i think we're all looking for -- simplify it. >> one of the regulations that this industry has complained about has been obamacare and it has been that you're not hiring enough full-time workers because you're going to have to pay them pore and cover their insurance. so if we do get the repeal and replacement of obamacare, denny, does that mean you can hire more full-time workers? >> it's a real wait and see at this point for us. we also traditionally offered health care to our team members

and so we still see the majority of them taking health care we offer. so we'll wait and see and how that plays out. but we see it as an advantage to be able to have a health care program for our team members at the restaurant level for as many as possible. >> we as well. we have always -- we've never looked to cut hours so that we would avoid health care. we believe everyone should have health care. i think the challenge with obamacare is just the sheer cost of health care has risen so up much higher than influgs. >> for consumers, also. that's driving the concern. we did research this weekend. and what would cause people to begin to use restaurants more frequently again. and the universal challenges are still there. greater convenience, which is increasingly getting defined as delivery which we're all going to have to deal with. but more importantly, they're still seeking value. value defined as maximum amount of food for the price. and that's a reflection of the fact that the consumer is still pulling back. >> value never goes out of

style. >> no. on that value. >> just gets redefined. >> how have you guys being competing with the groersry stores because there's been food deflati deflation. people want to stay home and make dinner. >> i think there's a lot of talk of that. i'm not so sure people are using all those remodeled kitchens they have invested? >> painful. >> unique products that we have. our chicken, flame grilled, citrus marinated. great tasting. you're not going to get that in the grocery store. >> there's still the value of of service and koins is tense si. >> and on that note about service what are you seeing, russ, on wages? how are you coping with the wage inflation that we have seen in the last few months? >> wages are increasing even higher than minimum wage because unemployment is down and we've always paid above minimum wage. but you know, there definitely is pressure not only on wages due to regulatory things but somebody associated cost,

obamacare, health care costs, workers compensation is, you know, can be significant at times. >> steve, how are you coping with the wage inflation? >> similar to russ. we've always paid more than the minimum wage. and really also have that compression issue when minimum goes up, those that were making close to that, what do you do with that group? and you have to raise them somewhat proportionally. but we want to attract the best quality candidates for our restaurants. if you look at our grill masters who are the main show, that's when you walk into our restaurants, they're there right in front of you. 30 feet of chicken grills right in front of you. and some of those have been with us for 10, 15, 20 years. some in the same store for 20 years. >> that's great. >> we will continue this conversation online. it's great to get a snapshot of the industry. thank you all, russ, denny, and steve. carl and jon, we'll send it back to you guys. >> great stuff. thank you very much. dow is closing in on 20k once again. is today the day?

we'll talk about that in a moment. what's the value of capital? what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley

. take a look at a. it's been leading the recent rally hitting a new 52-week high. up again today and now apple announcing releasing a fix to ma

krrks book pro. software fix in response to a consumer reports test. the battery life showed such varied results in the consumer reports test that they said they couldn't recommend those laptops but advised that if the battery results now become more consistent the ratings will rise. apple has provided the fix. apple has said that it was really an obscure browser setting in so far as turning off the browser cache that triggered this. a lot of people wouldn't run into this issue in real life. but regardless now fixed, carl. >> interesting. still hovering above 119 this morning. snap inc is flishing a headquarters in britain. latest tech company to choose london as home to international xra operations since the brexit vote. snap still gearing up for a potential public offering this year, a year in which we expect a bunch of big names perhaps to come to market like airbnb,

uber, and snap. >> they've have done particularly well, at least in terms of gaining users. 000 it's time to see if they can really put those numbers out there that impress potential investors. >> yeah. good day for the nas. record high, trans ports, best day since early december. we will see if this march to 20k can continue. let's get over to wapner and "the half." >> carl, thanks so much. welcome to the "halftime report." our top trade this our, sell goldman. big call from one wall street firm which says the post election run while reasonable has left no margin for error. with us for the hour today joe terranova, jon najarian, testify a stephanie link. happy new year. >> great to be here. >> great to have you back. i want to begin with goldman sachs. it is lower on the day today. it is a drag on the dow. it is off the worst levels