lunch" and see you there. >> as kelly mentioned, we're awaiting the minutes from the last federal reserve meeting, the dow up about 150 points, 140. half a percent the s&p 500 is up about a half or little more of a percent. and nasdaq and s&p at record highs. ten year yield is slightly higher to steve liesman for the details. >> federal reserve officials, january meeting, said interest rate policy was likely to remain appropriate for a time provided that the incoming data met the outlook. the committee saw some improvements, but they were worried about a new risk that just emerged as they met at the end of january, the coronavirus. there were signs of stab stabilization, participants were optimistic on trade, saying business sentiment and investment outlook were both better

they said several would be limited because of uncertainty the risk of a hard brexit had receded. overall they said the risk of recession had fallen but they added uncertainties remain, including those posed by the coronavirus. they said, quote, the threat of the coronavirus in addition to its human toll had emerged as a new risk to the global growth outlook that warranted close watching you heard other fed officials talk about this since that meeting. now, also importantly, several fed officials saw elevated levels of equities, corporate debt and commercial real estate valuations they noted the high levels of corporate debt and weak underwriting and worried about bank dividend payments, reducing capital by the banks, it was noted that levels are high and they debated whether low interest rates created financial risks. new debate we see some of it on maybe more in the open now. many committee members said they should not rule out the potential ty of adjusting the

stance of monetary policy to mitigate financial stability risks. they saw the labor market as strong pardon me. and a few thought that you could let the job market run further, saying the current employment levels is below possibly the maximum employment level there was concern about running tight labor markets and financial imbalances so they were looking at a better and brighter outlook, but then the coronavirus came along as a new risk that they're now watching and i think those -- both the data as greg was saying and their thinking has moved along since the end of january, when this first appeared >> very interesting. this is the end of january, i'm waiting for the day, steve, when they say current policy is inappropriate, but i'm just going to wait a long time for that, i know you talked about how there is some discussion of whether low interest rates might create financial risk what are they driving at there, and are they driving at the idea

that when you get low interest rates, you have the possibility of inflating other asset categories, whether it is bonds or stocks or whatever. is that what they're driving at? >> you're exactly right. there is some concern on the committee that you run accommodated policies for quite so long and that you create financial -- they see the stock market going up every day, just like we do and there may be situations it says here the staff when it is accommodated policy to lead to financial eventual nrbl financial vulnerability. some think some market participants believe that what is happening on the balance sheet side, increase in the balance sheet, leading to higher equity prices. fed officials, i don't know a better way to say this, they're aware of the debate going on every day on cnbc about the impact of fed policy on what is happening in the markets today.

>> one more quick one if you don't mind, does your reading of these minutes cause you to agree more or disagree with what greg if just said and that is namely that if there is any bias in the think of the fed, it is probably a bias toward lower rates later in the year? >> i think that's right. i think they want to see the risks out there, clear there is a debate about whether or not what happened with trade at the end of the year is really going to lead to increase business sentiment, increase business investment. if that were to happen, they could change their opinion right now. but because of this coronavirus, because of other things that are out there, tyler, i think that bias is towards cutting. though right now they're saying very clearly as you said, policy is appropriate >> all right, steve, we appreciate it, as always, steve liesman in washington. let's go to bob pisani at the new york stock exchange for more reaction. bob? >> very little reaction right now. we were at 3389 on the s&p

that's essentially where we are. let me echo what steve said, for equity traders, there is two things that everyone was focused on now the first is everyone is expecting the next move on rates will be a cut, not an increase the markets expect 1 to 2 cuts sometimes this year. the case for easing, we see recession chances lower, brexit lower, coronavirus there, i think greg if was right here limited impact on the u.s. there is no particular urgency to move right now. the sense still remains, certainly from this report, that the trend is towards an easing bias, not an increase. the other would be on some focus on the balance sheet i didn't really here anything about that everybody wants to know where the balance sheet right now is and how fast are they going to wind down that qe program. they'll call it qe, they're buying the short end of the curve there. that's the important thing haven't heard a lot about that

the market psychologically loves the idea that liquidity, any liquid doesn't matter, call it qe or not, will help the market. they started that program on october 11th and that was one of the days when the market started moving up and had a fabulous fourth quarter most traders believe the federal reserves with an important part of that fourth quarter rally back to you. >> bob, thank you. bob pisani rick santelli at the cme tracking the bond reaction here. if i were to sum this up, not in terms of bond reaction, by 155 when we went into this meeting but that we're talking about a bias towards lower interest rates, driven by two things, often move and hand. one would be if inflation continues to fall short of the fed's target and, two, if the economy starts to fall short of the fed's expectations and slows, right >> yeah, no, it is pretty difficult to argue with that but i always like to carve out

some issue on the other side, and i personally think that capital spending and some of these things that have been deficient as of the last six or seven quarters are going to come back so, yes, there is an asymmetric bias to the fed. that's impossible to argue against, all things being equal, a statustician would say sometimes toward the end of the year, if any of the things you outline, the door would be open. i think that we fall into these conventional wisdoms, the economy isn't going to change. i think it is possible they are. a lot of conditions within the economy and a lot of issues whether trade that gave the handoff to coronavirus, that may at some point dissipate in the future and as for two other issues, markets always want liquidity, kids always want cookies as far as the fed with their bias, i do think the fed raised

a few times in the last 30 years, but i think their bias 85% of the time is always to throw more cookies into the mix. >> great thought, rick thank you very much. i appreciate the analogy let's get more reaction to today's fed minutes with tom pour sele, chief u.s. economist with rbc capital markets we seem to be -- i know you're joining us by phone. we seem to be coalescing around the idea that whether it is explicit or implicit in the minutes that we just read, the presumption is that the slight or vague bias of this fed right now would be towards cutting rates if either of two things occur. one, a market slowing of the economy is a result of the coronavirus or other factors and two a short fall of inflation. >> yeah. look, i think particularly on -- with regard to the slowing of economic activity, you know, that's always true i think it is always going to be inclined to ease rates if things slow

hopefully that's been obvious point to everyone. i think that begs the sort of -- the natural question of, well, are things going to slow we -- no one can get their head around coronavirus in a re clear way. i do think that the impact is going to probably be fairly modest overall and so i think then if that conclusion is right, i think it is easy to conclude the fed will be on hold this year it is election year, for better or worse, the fed will be loathe to adjust policy one way or the other in this election year unless the economy absolutely demands it and, again, i think that's what they have been telling us. >> you're at no rate cuts this year, right? >> that's right. no action from the fed this year look, you know, the market is pricing in some policy action. just the simple act of a cut, whether one or more cuts, you know, the market is pricing in an 80% odds of that. i think that is way too high

i think the economic backdrop is going to move along in a pretty reasonable way, much as it did last year. but, yeah, that's where the market is right now. we would disagree with that. >> tom, thank you. tom with rbc if tom's right and the market has to come around to the idea there will be no more cuts this year, will that cause some upset? >> not really. ultimately what the market needs to see here is growth. you had a lot of central banks coming in around the world, cutting rates last year, providing some stimulus. i think markets understand that that stimulus occurs with a lag. and so what we would be expecting to see here is a pickup in global growth because we have had that stimulus now put in place around the world by central banks over the last 12 to 18 months we also have seen a drawdown in inventories in terms of the overall inventoriy stocking that occurred last year and weak growth last year, that was much weaker than initial expectations by the imf

we're actually hoping to see this latest improvement in activity continue into the year to come. and if that happens, that would be the most bullish thing for stocks because you could get some earnings growth. >> right, if that's the case, what you're describing is basically, hey, we already pumped in liquidity. we're going to start to get more traction this year why is the ten-year at 1.5, barely over 1.5% does that make sense to you in the kind of scenario you're describing >> well, no, it doesn't, in a traditional sense. keep in mind we're in a world where you're allocating capital globally, confronted with even lower interest rates in many parts of the world to go to europe, go to japan. and suddenly our rates look very competitive. but on a stand alone basis, you're right, the overall level of interest rates around the world is low from a historical perspective. we would expect to see rates normalize so that you have over

time you get rates here in the united states equallibriating around gdp would land. you've got these very low global rates which is making it hard for our rates here in the united states to rise >> fair enough and, again, environment we have been in for quite some time. good news for stocks, i guess, if nothing else. kevin, we appreciate it. thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up, who would win in a stock picking competition between robots and humans? we'll talk to a man who compared analyst recommendations to the robocalls and tell you what he found. move over tesla, virgin galactic is the hot new stock on the street it has tripled this year r ndg e the buyers responsible foseinthe stock to the moon power lunch will be right back imagine traveling hassle-free with your golf clubs. now you can, with shipsticks.com!

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tesla it an amazing run this year this year, there is a new hot stock on the street, called virgin galactic, it is blasting past tesla that stock soaring up more than 200% this year and retail investors appear to be flooding in kate rooney is live in san francisco. ready for liftoff, kate? >> that's right. virgin glass tick was the most bought name on a handful of trading platforms this week. let's look at fidelity first

according to the firm, virgin galactic, it outpaced two other retail favorites, tesla and appl fin tech company sofi as well. a smaller platform, but 200,000 people, but gives us a sample size of what millennials are buying majority of those traders are ages 25 to 40. yesterday virgin galactic saw by far its largest trading volume ever on so phi, that was 14 times the historical average and more than double its previous biggest day for the space company. td ameritrade, according to the investor movement index, virgin galactic among the top names bought in january. they're continuing to see clients buying in february, not quite at the same levels yesterday's total trading volume was nearly ten times the daily average volume for virgin galactic and, guys, keep in mind, this company is only trading publicly since october

and they're not expected to turn a profit this year tyler? >> thank you very much, kate rooney, appreciate it. the street might be loving the stock. jim cramer saying what goes up must come down >> this is what happens when too many people want a stock around the clock. no one is going to mars that i know of. it can't be stopped now. and these things tend to end badly. you try tell someone that and think this is tesla, they better put -- they better put somebody on mars like yesterday >> for more, we bring in michael sheetz it is good you have a z in your name you feel so futuristic like the right kind of person to be talking about how -- who are we sending branson to -- and what happened that is changing things. >> branson is supposed to be the first one to go. but the excitement around this

has been coming up for a while here and so when you have only a very few number of pure play stocks, that are in the space sector and have so much prichlt investmevit it is very clearly on speculation and what could be coming in the technology in the future >> i didn't even know we had a space reporter, michael. it is nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you too. >> i got an idea for you you have a column and called it sheetz creek. >> we have sheetz in space. >> sheetz in space. >> i like that how is this company ever going to make money? how much are they going to are to charge for a seat >> they're going to have to charge -- they did charge about $250,000 for about 603 customers so far that have reservations.

it has flown and they have flown five astronauts in two flights last year, their goal is to get a couple of test flights done this year, and then get branson on that first flight that's really the -- if you will, the grand opening of the commercial operations. then they have that backlog of customers they have to get through, but also they have reported that they have around 3500 expressions of interest, really key phrase that they're using, for future reservations and they said before that they're planning to reopen those reservations later this year you'll really get a better picture of when they report their fourth quarter earnings next tuesday. >> so much of this does remind you of tesla in a way with the reservations for the next generation of cars coming out, in this case for the future rides. to michael's point, there is not other vehicles, if you want to trade space, spacex owned by tesla, why that is been a big story this year. that might explain why people

are piling into this name. are they the youngest of the investors, investors of all stripes piling in here >> so true great question fidelity and td ameritrade don't break out their demographics we do know sofi is mostly millennials and ways to track robin hood through certain websites you see that same retail interest in names like tesla, but you can look at some qualitative factors which include google search is one example. look at the trendof what peopl are searching for, we saw it with tesla, tesla on google, it would pop up as should i buy tesla. this week, you saw the trend on friday, really spike, so you can look at some of those other factors. reddit and twitter are good signals of what the younger generation is searching for and trading. >> when is branson going up? >> he puts himself where his money is right? >> really does

and they say that he will go up later this year. granted that's -- they just moved the spacecraft from their testing bed in california mojave desert to the operations facility in new mexico now they have to perform a couple of more tests out there in new mexico, including more rocket powered flights that will take a couple of months at the least and we'll see what time. perhaps more clarity in the fourth quarter call on when the -- >> does this craft actually go into orbit is it near earth orbit? >> it is suborbital. you're correct in saying that. it goes to an altitude of a little over 80 kilometers above the earth. enough to experience zero gravity for about ten minutes. that's what you're getting out of this experience. >> i like that that's good. >> you tell me how it is >> i am following with the increasing interest. i'll give you that >> sheetz creek. >> michael sheetz, kate rooney,

we appreciate it for more, go to cnbc.com >> that was good that was fun yeah i was telling sheetz i enjoyed that stocks are hitting new all tomb highs today. at the same time gold is soaring. soaring. a word we don't use much here to the highest levels in nearly seven years. what is going on with gold can it go higher from here big tech is leading the markets higher squeezing out small rivals in the process. up knechxt, ceneon promising te darlings that are now struggling to survive or it isn't. it's either testing an array of advanced safety systems. or it isn't. it's either the peace of mind of a standard unlimited mileage warranty. or it isn't. for those who never settle, it's either mercedes-benz certified pre-owned. or it isn't. the mercedes-benz certified pre-owned sales event.

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♪ welcome to power lunch i'm seema mody gold extending its rally into a fifth straight session and closing in on highs not seen in seven years. let's bring in the trading nation team to discuss john, what is behind this big move in gold is it lower yields, geopolitics, coronavirus? what do you think? >> i think it is just about everything we're in an environment where

bond yields stink, stock valuations continue to crawl up -- creep higher the u.s. debt situation is $22 trillion and going higher. you have global currencies, global central banks around the world debasing the underlying currency to inflate themselves because we can't do it or beganically. in organically. you need gold to offer solid diversification, despite the fact that gold is hard to value. it doesn't provide any industrial use, doesn't throw off any cash flow, but you need to prepare for that black swan event. that's where gold is a portion of the portfolio. >> what doesn't make sense is how this coincided with a very strong dollar. the dxy is the a three year high. >> yeah, no question, a very strong inverse correlation between the two. but as john said, we have institutional portfolio managers have to choice but to stay with the market as it rallies they need a little something to edge that with the coronavirus

and all the other issues you mensed but also on the technical side, gold is breaking out you saw break of the gloclosing highs yesterday. before that, setting up very nicely, the breakout level was 1515 it broke above that and came back that old resistance level became new support. came back down to that level early january, held it nicely. bounced strongly to a new high the intraday high there is 1,611. that will confirm the next leg is going higher. and citigroup is right, we'll see $2,000 before the end of the year. >> we'll watch to see. thank you. for more trading nation, head to our website or follow us on twitter. >> ahead on "power lunch," from gold to, well, digital gold. bitcoin above the 12,000 mark once again man versus machine, a new study shows that robot trading coue i

outperform humans. how much is bloomberg worth? all this when "power lunch" returns. now, the latest from trading nation.cnbc.com and a word from our sponsor. >> overbought and oversold indicators are generally used differently depending on whether the stock is range bound or trending look to buy a rafnge bound markt when it falls in oversold territory and moves back above it look to sell a range bound market when the oscillator rises into overbought territory and into overbought territory and then drops below when we started our business

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former illinois governor rod blagojevich is back home in chicago expressing gratitude to president trum fp for commuting his sentence for political corruption >> president trump is a man who is tough and outspoken, but also has a kind heart and this is an act of kindness and i believe it is the

beginning of the process to actually turn an injustice into a justice. >> re-useable smart coffee cups getting rolled out at some independent coffee shops in san francisco. palo alto, california. the cups come equipped with rfid chips or qr codes for tracking they're part of the next gen cup challenge spearheaded by starbucks and mcdonald's. ryan newman, the victim of the crash at monday's daytona 500 leaving the medical center with his two daughters this picture was tweeted out by his company who said he's fully alert. that is incredible after that crash. >> that is crazy. >> just -- i'm shocked >> oh, my gosh you would have thought -- i mean, people were really worried. >> it was horrible seeing those photos, the video, it was terrifying. >> it reminded back almost to the day that dale earnhardt sr. was lost on that very track on a

late race crash into the wall. that's amazing >> so glad history did not repeat itself in this case >> that's great news fantastic, thanks. let's look at the markets now. why wouldn't you want to it is all green. it has been lately half percentage point higher for the industrials, about two-thirds of a point for the s&p 500 and one full percent higher for the nasdaq. russell 2,000 splitting the difference up. power movers, smile direct is tanking about 4% now after falling as much as 9% on a report it is risk of having its top dentist lose its license in a california crackdown shares are nearly cut in half from the $23 ipo price around $12.50 this afternoon. tyson foods, the food giant says its business has been slowing since january because ports in china are backed up due to coronavirus. makes you wonder if others will be dealt with the same problem garmin hitting a 12 year high today.

the company beating on earnings and revenue saying all business segments surpassed expectations. the oil market is closing up for the day. let's go to rahel solomon for more. >> oil prices continuing their rally today. international benchmark brent crude around 59.15 a barrel, up 2.4% wti, similar story, up 2.5%. closing around 53.36 brent is up more than 6% in the last seven days. wti more than 4. the move today prompted by what appears to be a slowdown in reported coronavirus cases though the world health organization did warn it is still early to know if the virus has been contained also supply cuts, after the u.s. government sanctioned a russian firm that it says is helping support the government and its controversial leader nicolas maduro >> the man versus machine battle heating up on wall street as

trading is on the rise a new study at indiana university kelly school of business suggests that robo analysts appear to make more profitable investment choices than humans. here to explain is ken merkley, professor of accounting at indiana university kelly school. welcome. good to have you with us. >> thank you thank you for having me. >> i learned long ago the first question one should always ask when one is discussing a study like this is was this study funded by an outside group and if so, who was it? >> the only funding we have comes from indiana university. >> fantastic got that out of the way. >> sure. >> so sum up the findings and tell me who was competing against whom and over how long. >> so let me just give you a -- basically three findings the first is that we compare robot analysts to traditional wall street human analysts and we find that the robot analysts tend to be more -- less

optimistic, more balanced, they revise their recommendations more often, so they're less stale, and then the finding that you talked about is we find that the bias from the robot analysts in our portfolio trading strategy outperform the human analysts by about 4% annualized. >> so professor, you have a couple of examples here of exactly the situations you described. one is liberty global. the beginning of april, 2018, when 76% of human analysts said it was a buy, 1100% of the firms that you looked at two in this case two of the seven said sell and liberty down 10% over the next six months. mattel, december of 2016, most of the human said buy, most said hold and mattel went on to sink 28% in six months. similar story with halliburton as well. the question we have is what do you mean by robots here? it sounds like this is a lot of big data analytics, combing through footnotes and such is that right?

>> you have different approaches depending on the specific company. they're computer assisted programs where you have a human perhaps doing quality control, but the computers are doing all of the stock picking >> okay. >> how many robo firms in total did you look at and versus how many human-based analyst firms that's one question. was the robo firm count large enough to be in your view, i assume it would be, statistically significant. >> so the robot firms with don't have as many in our sample we have seven different robot firms that enter. and we have all of the major wall street banks and analysts, so, you know, it is 50 to 100 or more depending on the time period the downside is the robots, we have fewer observations which can make it harder actually for them to find significant results. >> and are robots more balanced and less optimistic because they don't have to explain to humans

why they're possess siessimists' have to explain to sales staffs why they are down on a particular stock. >> so i completely agree with that they don't have investment banking, they don't have concerns, they don't have to have access to managements, we don't have to worry about upsetting company management and then there are also human. humans research studies say that humans tend to be more optimi optimistic on average. and humans make errors, the robots follow their programs exactly. >> so a couple of the firms of the seven that are included here, new constructs, david trainer on as a guest, the street.com with jim cramer has been associated with rapid ratings. i think my uncle works there value engine which we're familiar with as well. bottom line, though, when i look through the methodologies and going back to footnotes, i wo d wonder if financial reporting has become so overwrought

through regulation through the t is almost impossible for any human who tracks more than one company to really take in all of that data. am i being too condescending toward humans or is there a potential problem here that maybe slimmed down reporting or something like that could fix. >> not at all. reporting has become increasingly complex and that's where the robots have their advantage, the study we find that they're more likely to revise in connection with complex disclosures, so if i dump a 500 page 10k on your desk, you'll have a hard time parsing through that, a computer can do it very quickly >> all right, the few, the proud, the robots, we thank you. >> thank you very much. >> you bet >> shares of groupon are down 40% today to an all time low the company is changing strategies as it deals with competition from bigger rivals it is just one example of small tech getting squeezed by much, much bigger tech deirdre bosa joins us with more.

>> take a look at this at its peak, groupon was worth more than $16 billion. today it is worth less than a billion dollars. the ceo said on the analyst call, our fourth quarter performance was disappointing by nearly every measure investors agree, but this goes back further steep fees that hurt its relationship with vendors, bargain oriented customers unwilling to pay up and ahead of its 2011 ipo, groupon warned that competition was an ongoing threat it specifically listed facebook, google, microsoft, left off amazon whose ecosystem has taken some of the shine off the daily deal model other rivals have emerged too, which have been acquired by bigger tech. groupon isn't alone, take a look at some of the other once tech darlings that have struggled to compete against bigger tech. last night blue apron said it

was exploring strategic options including a sale fitbit facing off against apple and wearables, lost 80% of its value since its ipo. go pro shares down 90% from its 2016 debut and sonos going to court over patent infringement. big tech shares, we know where they have gone, the other direction with that trillion dollar club getting larger and larger back to you. >> 1.4 trillion. unbelievable apple behind it. deirdre, thanks. coming up, details of the difficulty michael bloomberg could face if he gets elected president. we'll explain. breaking the mold, burger king touting roena tt whopper on twitter that it is proud of. at leaf blowers. you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out.

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to generate the talent companies need. with a $150 billion investment in state of the art, modern infrastructure, and a nation-leading commitment to low-cost clean energy, new york is doing more than any other state to build for the future of your business. new york state, the state of the future. learn more at esd.ny.gov. welcome back michael bloomberg debating his fellow democrats for first time in las vegas as we're learning his plan for his business if he should get elected robert frank joins us now. >> there is no law or rule preventing the president of the united states from owning or profiting from a company while in office. michael bloomberg says he would put his business into a blind

trust, and the trust would then sell it if he was elected president. now, he owns nearly 90% of bloomberg lp, the financial data and news company estimated to be worth between 50 and $60 billion. revenues for that business topped $10 billion just last year over 300,000 paying customers for bloomberg lp and has about 20,000 employees worldwide now, there is a lot of questions around who could actually be a buyer to avoid conflicts, he says he would not allow a sale to a foreign buyer or to a private equity firm and given his dominance in the market data business, a sale to competitors like black rock or thompson reuters would probably raise antitrust issues some speculate that one of the big exchanges or maybe one of the new fin tech startups could be interested, but the price would likely be too high, which leaves a lot of speculation around the buyer of last resort here, berkshire hathaway, since it has a war chest of over $120

billion. >> tomorrow, the billionaire takes on the anti-billionaires tonight. it is going to be very interesting. >> it is going to get good. >> and to your point, if he doesn't prevail, then his billions will be funding the campaigns of the anti-billionaires. >> right interesting to see a billionaire funding bernie sanders who said billionaires shouldn't even exist. >> right. >> and whether bernie takes that money and what kind of campaign that looks like. >> i thought i read sanders said he would not take bloomberg's money. >> he hasn't said yes or no. he hasn't said one way or the other. >> left the door ajar. >> a little bit ajar >> as they always do in politics. >> billion dollar tips thank you. >> here is a taste of some of the stories we're following it today. we call it the tasting menu. nvidia part of the in crowd today. bernstein upgrading the stock to outperform giving it the highest target on the street at $360, shares up 5% on the call hitting a new report high. coronavirus, what virus, nvidia stock up nearly 50% in just

three months. >> look at the chart incredible reversal. not just tesla and virgin galactic higher. lower are the unemployment levels near 50 year lows. new report shows the skills gap is even worse than it seems. tech firms are struggling the most manpower groups say 7 out of 10 u.s. companies reported talent short annuals last year. that's an all time high. it is three times higher than it was ten years ago and the problem is global. only 18% of countries surveyed are not reporting shortages. china, the uk and ireland among those reporting fewer hiring issues. finally, breaking the mold burger king giving the term going green, a new meaning in a new television commercial promoting a move to preservative free ingredients, the famous whopper is seen turning green literally. in a time lapse covering 34 days there. look at the mold grow. look at it rot well, burger king always said you can have it your way now i guess you can have it with

blue cheese. it is not the first time that i fast food chain has gone preservative free. mcdonald's went preservative free in some products a couple of years ago, even changing its special sauce and that followed similar moves by the panera bread company and chipotle they're make a virtue out of the fact that unlike some other products, i guess, in the fast food world, their burger will rot. >> i think this is a mistake i know it achieved its goal. we're all talking about it why would you want to draw the attention to the fact you had preservatives in the first place, would anyone have been thinking, i'm going to burger king, never mind, they use preservatives? this was not a story line to me until they made it one and now we know that mcdonald's did it a few years ago i don't know this is me hello. bitcoin is booming so far in 2020 it is back above 10,000. it is getting more credibility from regulators and from institutional investors. we'll talk to the future of adf nae tee s. with thu. he ofincafr this sfx: [phone ringing]

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the bitcoin bulls keep charging on as the cryptocurrency is moving in tandem with the gold rush

last week i asked tom lee which was likely to hit the 40,000 mark first, bitcoin or the dow this is what he said. >> if i had to say, you know, what is first to 40,000, i would pick the dow >> so is the bitcoin rally for real joining me to discuss the ceo of the finance us, the u.s. arm of one of the largest u.s. cryptocurrency exchanges what do you think is behind this. >> we've seen a lot coming through with the markets right now we're seeing excitement going into the bitcoin, as well as an increase in the available derivatives products out there you see the open interest on the cme at its highest and you also see access to digital assets at the easiest level. >> access to digital assets, is that sort of the way that people are accessing this i wonder if it's also -- we spoke with the firm that had their kind of quasi etf approved in just a last couple of weeks

does it feel like the regulators are trying to get behind this as well >> absolutely, you saw gray scale get the clearance through from regulators and you also saw hefter pierce but forward her proposal for an increased regulation around allowing for new activities to take place with kind of a three-year bench mark so seeing these changes is really an important thing to see the evolution take place and see america lead that charge. >> you do see more and more -- let me just use the cliched word mainstream money managers saying that you ought to have some bitcoin in your portfolio or some hard asset that is not directly correlated to the markets in there i'm looking at four of the leading crypto platforms, bitcoin, light coin and ripple and the distribution of returns is extremely wide. why is that? >> well, you see the use case for each of those assets to be different and aligned to areas

of the industry that we really have to focus on we can't necessarily paint with a broad stroke wide, bitcoin would be rallying and yxrp would be rallying in the same case so you're going to see a divergence between certain coins but an all tides rise when we look at bitcoin and the rest of the market. >> one of the reasons why there is a dispersion of returns is that they have different use cases. compare one against the other in light of those different returns. >> sure. you've got a story value component with bitcoin where people are seeing this as almost a flight to safety or a flight to sovereignty for their sake. so when geopolitical situations become concerning, you're going to want to hold your own assets and access them this 24/7. that's going to be a different case and scenario for xrp which is going to be useful for krans

transactions and moving funds across borders. >> xrp is ripple >> it's actually the digital asset and ripple is the company. >> catherine, what do you think the next couple of catalysts might be for people who have gotten in on bitcoin before and only got burned. >> financial inclusion is a financial asset for them to bring forward. the idea of equalizing the access that you get through platforms, allowing people to trade and access these markets 24/7 from their phones, really makes that easy. education, convert into an actual trading situation so we're seeing that education steps take place and that's something that i think we'll see continuing this year. >> catherine, we appreciate it bitcoin around 10,176. >> and check, please, is next. don't forget, you can always watch or listen to us live on the go on the cnbc app we'll be right back.

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mmm... good. so i've spent my life developing technology to help the visually impaired. we are so good. we built a guide that uses ibm watson... to help the blind. it is already working in cities like tokyo. my dream is to help millions more people like me. authentic brands is buying forever 21 authentic brands will be working with brookfield and some other landlords on the intellectual property, e-commerce and a few other pieces we know themle well, they've been on an acquisition spree, including sports illustrated. >> we had so much fun shooting the sheet michael sheets

that we've decided to bring him back you've got a really good twitter handle. >> at the sheets tweets. >> that's with zs, at the sheetz tweets we're talking about virgin galactic which has been one of the hottest stocks of the year maybe of the decade? the decade is young. this is one of the hottest stocks of the year, up 16%, 204% year to date is it widely viewed that virgin galactic will be the first to carry space tourists into space? >> space tourists, yes, absolutely >> not tesla, not amazon, not anybody else >> unless amazon and jeff bezos has some secret plan i don't know about, then yes, virgin galactic should be the first to fly space tourists though spacex will probably be the first to fly affidavstronauts. >> when is richard branson potentially going to go up into

space? >> it could be summer, later this year. we don't know exactly. >> and is this a totally automatically controlled robotic aircraft or is there a pilot >> there's actually two pilots for this one. >> interesting >> we have more questions. >> come on back. any time. >> absolutely. >> thanks for watching "power lunch," everybody. >> "closing bell" starts right now. >> welcome to the "closing bell." i'm wilfred frost and we're going to pick up where the "power lunch" team left off, on virgin galactic. of course that stock continues it's rice up 16% today we're going to compare and contrast the run of virgin galactic with tesla and see if there's anything we can learn. s&p 500 and nasdaq both at highs. we're also at session highs as we stand with 59 minutes left to trade. >> i'm sarah eisen let's look at what's driving the action we are on nasdaq record high watch as we got some signs that the spread of coronavirus is slowing and ne