best month since 1987. and stocks aren't the only game in town, bitcoin is booming again. and thanksgiving 2020 with more people preparing a smaller feast this year, and others cooking a turkey for the first time, we'll check in as we always do with the butterball hotline for a little bit of advice it is wednesday, november 25, 2020 and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ holiday road holiday road ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box." this is cnbc and i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and brian sullivan nice fast change, i like it, took the jacket off and changed the backdrop and all ready to go >> i'm all squawked up >> and we all are.

this is the appropriate squawking holiday, a big bird holiday, we'll be talking to butterball later this morning. but you have to check out the u.s. equity futures because of what happened yesterday. again, mixed session right now, dow down by about 71 points, nasdaq up by 25, but it is what happened yesterday that is so noteworthy the dow trading above and closing above 30,000 for the first time ever yesterday. in fact month to date, the dow is up more than 13%. crazy to think about the dow up 13%. it is on pace to break a two month losing streak with its best monthly performance since january of 1987. so within striking distance of the all-time record. if you look at the run from dow 20,000 to dow 30,000 yesterday, here are the biggest gainers, apple up by 280% salesforce up by 236%. and also big gains for microsoft, visa and nike

the laggards of course walgreen's, ibm and chevron. and we should mention all those dow components weren't dow components that long ago salesforce a huge gainer and we're up 12,000 points just from the low that we saw from the pandemic back in march and again, it is in the even the dow that is the best performer year to date, the dow up 5.4%, but if you have been watching what is happening with the s&p, it is up by 12.5%. and then you have the nasdaq, which is the incredible performer of the year. maybe not lately, but year to date, it is up 34% so you are talking about big market rallies brian, i know that you were talking about some of dow components that have outperformed just this month >> it has been pretty insane boeing up 52% and this is coming from our crack team, if we can get above 30,164, andrew, in the

next three trading days, it will be the best month for the dow since january of 1976. that's nuts. >> wow you >> let's talk sectors also in the march from 20,000 to 30,000, technology of course the best performer no shocker there but did you know it is up more than 140%? the only sector in the red over the period, what else, energy, oil and gas down about 44%, like the grim reaper covering the space. all other sectors up 20% or more so not only the only sector down, but down by about 60% from the next worst all right. a lot of economic data to watch on this pre-thanksgiving wednesday. are you ready? weekly jobless claims a day early, durable going, second read on third quarter gdp, personal income, personal

spending, new home sales and andrew, consumer sentiment >> a lot going on. a lot going on let us also tell you about the top corporate news because there is also a lot going on shares of nikola are under pressure once again, the company's ceo failing to reassure investors that gm won't be pulling out of its $2 billion deal in an interview with jim cramer on "mad money," the ceo said that talks with gm on that deal to supply battery technology and build an electric pickup truck he says are ongoing. >> we're interested in gm's hydro tech fuel cell system. and it is very interesting to us we're interested in your battery system and we continue to talk to them about those things >> so here is the deal though. both sides can walk away technically if a deal is not finalized by next week

nikola's founder as we all know resigned in september. and the ceo russell wouldn't tell cramer if milton plans to sell off of his shares when a lockup period ends next tuesday. so a bit of a question, i wouldn't say an overhang, but that is something that is on a lot of people's minds. mean timing, a different story in electric car land, this time for tesla. check out these shares look at this chart the company topping $500 billion in market cap, that is ahead of the debut, it will be debuting on the s&p 500 next month. tesla is up more than 500% this year talking about different stocks doing well, and this is unbelievable, it jumped more than 30% since the s&p announcement that it would be joining the s&p 500 on november 16 so i would think -- i guess we were showing before stocks over the last -- from 20,000 to

30,000 but i don't know where tesla would -- has anybody actually done better -- i guess there has been, but not many >> well, yeah, mike was showing us a chart yesterday, it depends on the time framg you'e you're g at tesla has done well, but other electric car companies have outperformed it. he pointed to nio and it makes the gains in tesla look puny over the last several months >> and you got arrests know toe as well. everybody buying into the spacee as well. everybody buying into the space. take tesla i believe is the best performing stock in small cap, mid cap, large cap this year so smaller mighty nighmigh mighe done well, but i believe tesla

has the crown and elon musk supplanting -- to be fair to bill gates, he has given away like $30 billion so to be fair, musk passed him because gates has been so generous >> yeah. look, and we'll see what happens. part of it is holding on to the company that you founded bill gates sold a lot of his shares of microsoft. elon has held those shares of tesla. and that is why he has risen and done so well so we'll see what happens if he continues to hold the shares and if the shares continue do quite as well as they have guys, let's switch subjects, talk a little political news the white house has given formal approval for president-elect joe biden to receive the president's daily brief. this follows a formal notice by the general services administration on monday night that the formal transition of government can proceed receiving classified intelligence briefing is typically one of the first rights of the presidential candidate after winning the election joe biden speaking with lester

holt >> immediately we've gotten outreach from -- from the national security shop, from -- to just across the board they are already working out, my ability to get presidential daily briefs, we're already working out meeting with the covid team in the white house, and how to not only distribute but from a vaccine being distributed to a person able to get vaccinated so i think that we'll not be so far behind the curve as we thought we might be in the past. and there is a lot of immediate discussion and i must say, the outreach has been sincere. it has notbegrudging so far. >> and we'll talk about his cabinet picks and what swres tors should know about it all, that is still to come thorn. andrew, what kind of jumps out

at you, hearing this and seeing a transition that is starting to take place i think the market took some solace in that yesterday too >> and i was going to say that more -- you know, i think that there was a milestone obviously with janet yellen's appointment and there are people in the marketplace who are very happy about that and other things. but i think that to a large degree, this is taking -- should be take, we'll see, some volatility off the table i think that there were some very dare i say scary scenarios had been painted that what a transition or lack of transition could look like and i think at least this demonstrates the beginning of what might seem like a more normal transition and i think some of the worst case scenarios come off and we all don't like to took too much about politics, but i think it played a lot into what of what you were seeing in the market yesterday.

>> and brian, i heard you earlier talking with tracie potts. >> yeah, and i was going to say good to hear the comments, biden spoke with lester holt nbc exclusive by the way and let's be honest, the media, you know, sort of the bad stuff gets the headlines and we hear about a lot of stuff going on, but it was really nice to hear the president-elect say that the transition at least the folks that his team have been in touch with in the trump administration had been i think his term was sincere about it in other words, maybe some of the top line headlines that we hear every day are not necessarily always reflective of what the rank and file are doing behind the scenes. >> yeah, i definitely think that is the do you mean, brian? >> just that people get along a little better and the transition is not going to be as kind of volatile and angry as some of the rhetoric that comes out. i'm guessing that is what you mean >> but it wasn't that -- just to be 100% clear, not to be political about it, these people

as nice as they very well may be, were not participating in a transition prior to yesterday. could have they if they wanted to they technically could have if they were -- so just, you know, we can look at it in all different ways but there was no transition happening before yesterday or 48 hours ago now. >> well, i believe -- >> hopefully they will be nice about it, but i just -- they are supposed to be 23450nice about . >> i'm trying to find a little sunshine in the rain of politic, andrew and i get it, the president going to pennsylvania today to till sort of challenge this idea, what i was saying is just coming from the president-elect's comments himself, which is that i saw joe biden with lester basically saying -- doing what he was doing and calming people down and saying that the transition as he said it, this is his words, not mine, have been sincere. i have no idea if the trump

administration people have the ability to start a transition without the authorization of the gsa. i mean, i know -- i can't just tell cnbc, hey, i'm launching this, hey, wait a minute, we haven't authorized it. so i don't know what they are able to do it was just nice to hear some nice words i guess >> i think that it had a calming effect on the market i think that is part of what you saw. dow up by more than 450 points, the s&p had a bigger gain in percentage terms so you did see some relief that worked its way in. and this is a topic that we'll keep discussing through the next several weeks and months i'm sure and when we come back, we'll talk broke tabout the rise of b and what so-to-expeto expect net and take a look at the biggest s&p movers you will see it looks like hp, zion's bank and quest diagnostics are the biggest mover to the up side today's ways of working may work differently tomorrow.

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record high price. joining us is co-founder of morgan creek digital assets. we haven't seen you in a bit now. and a lot has happened since we've seen you in terms of where this has gone. where do you think it is headed, has it moved too fast, that is the question of the morning. >> good morning. thanks for having me i think the key piece is just bitcoin is kind of the winner of a supply and demand exercise and if you look at what happened in may, we had bitcoin having obviously the 1800 bitcoin a day, went down to 900 coming into supply. and at the same time we've had a macro environment that has forced people to look for inflation hedge assets due to the fear of inflation. and then also you've had many big buyers come to the market. so whether square, paypal, gbtc,

et cetera, there is a new study that said that square is buying up about 40% of the daily new incoming supply, paypal already even though they just launched a buy of about 70% of that supply, and i think the key piece is people coming from the wall street kind of investing world have to understand that most bitcoiners are not going to sell 63% or more of the bitcoin hasn't moved in the last 12 months so what you are seeing is increase in demand, there is a lack of supply or low supply and that is driving the price higher and i think that that will continue going into 2021 and the price will appreciate pretty aggressively from here. >> when you say aggressively, what do you think is fair value for bit coin and how would you get there? >> yeah, fair value is always a hard one because everyone uses different metrics. earlier this year, i started talking about once we kind of saw what the macro environment was going to do, i talked about

it as rocket fuel for bitcoin's price. you printed a bunch of money and if you look at things like janet yellen becoming treasury secretary, she will is notorious for being okay with higher levels of inflation. and so i don't think that it is that crazy to see bigger and bigger buyers. many large hedge funds are starting to get exposure to the asset. you see people like stanley drunken miller, bill millers, coming in. and if this becomes kind of a consensus trade, it wouldn't surprise me to see something even higher than 100,000 >> so i know you are very bullish, but give me the thing that would keep you up at night. what would turn it the other way? >> i always talk about the first thing is self inflicted wound. there is a bug introduced into the code or something like that. the second thing is some sort of

ghee owe political risk where we saw really aggressive coordinated kind of action by multiple nation states but again, i think that those are very low probability of occurring so it doesn't really seem like it will happen in the initial term >> and that is a question and we've talked about that a little bit in the last week in part because of a comment jamie dimon made and others have said that potentially regulators at some point, name your central bank, could decide you know what, we'll do our own digital currency and we don't want this other thing happening. >> yeah, i think it was actually on this show that i talked about almost a year ago now that the u.s. should rush and digitize the dollar we knew china was going to do it and they have made a lot of progress there so i do think that the u.s. will digitize the dollar. i think that there will be other countries that digitize their fiat currency as well. but we're starting to see that the u.s. government is actually

encouraging some of this there was news last week that circle got approval from the u.s. government to start providing some sort of usd support for people in venezuela. i think that you will start to see that the government realizes this is superior technology, rather than fight it, they can embrace some of this and ultimately it will lead to global adoption of digital wallets and it will drive everything higher in terms of adoption >> and so we talk about bitcoin as if it is the only crypto currency if you were literally playing for returns, is bitcoin the one to own or is there something else that you put on the list? >> think of it as a venn diagram. what do i have highest confidence in? bitcoin is the only thing that i own. i'm over 90% allocated to it at this point and continue to accumulate more and more bitcoin as time goes on. >> okay. anthony, appreciates it.

nice to see you. you're living in a digital world, so maybe we'll just live in a simulation together >> you guys have a great day >> andrew, i heard yesterday you were talking about -- or the other day talking about paypal a question for you i have not, but i would like to, have you ever transacted with bitcoin or a digital current city i admit i haven't. i probably should just to see how the process works. >> i haven't i have an account that we've talked about at one point, i had $5, i'm sure maybe the $5 is worth maybe $100 today but i have never done much with it obviously mistakenly had i, make i would have known and we wouldn't be waking up this early in the morning anymore, we'd be on a beach somewhere. >> or are on our yacht on a beach. becky, if we all just listen to the winklevoss twin, we'd all be

rich >> very true on deck, are black friday and cyber monday a thing of the past i mean, let's hope so. how retailers though have turned two shopping days into a weeks' long discounting extravaganza no matter how you pay dow futures off 68 hey, dad!

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that at least the move in the dow we've seen may take a bit of a pause, but you can see the green on the screen for the nasdaq so maybe tech going this one direction, the dow going in another. this month has been marked by red hot stocks for dow boeing is up 52% in the month of november alone a lot of various news on that stock. but technology has actually underperformed in many ways. by the way, oil prices have been hot and andrew as you pointed out, many of the oil stocks that were just beaten unhap have outperformed sm energy up 185 but when you've dropped 90%, i guess it is easy to bounce back just a britt if oil prices tick up >> we'll see we'll see. it has been tough. meantime, talking about a tough -- well, it has been tough but certain ways maybe not

a couple retail stocks to tell you about. some clobbered, others not so much gap reported lower than expected profit for its latest quarter and you can seeing that stock getting clobbered this morning we often edon't talk about that there are a lot of costs involved in the cyber retail world. meantime on the other end, let's show you nordstrom their shares trading higher, reporting better than expected results. nearly 40% jump in online sales. the company expecting that continued momentum, but cautioning shipping charges and premium holiday pay will be hurting earnings meantime american eagle outfitters earnings beat forecasts, this is the strength of the consumer in some regard, but revenue falling short, 3% short. store traffic slumpg ed the cletinothing retail saying

are seeing holiday demand in november so could be a pull forward and expects more of a shift to digital sales this quarter becky. 'tis the season for turkey and then of course holiday shopping but some say 2020 may have killed black friday forever as shoppers flocked online during the pandemic bertha coombs is joining us with more and i have to say after covering black friday for more than 20 years at this point, it feels like it will be pretty anticlimactic this black friday. >> yeah, it sort of feels like every other day has been black friday this year and it is because amazon, walmart, target and best buy all started talking about holiday sales in mid october and we're literally buying it according to adobe analytics. in the first three weeks o november, americans have already spent $58 billion online holiday sales, an average of about $2 billion a day.

and starting this week, that spending is expected to ramp up 50% to an average of $3 billion a day. though we won't see the door buster crowds due to covid that we've gotten used to over the years, more than half of gen z and millennials say they plan to shop in store friday morning, but that we'll drop a record $10 billion online friday and more than $12 billion cyber monday, the biggest shopping day of the year now and while santa meantime has reindeer, we talked about the shipping costs being a big factor, retailers are pairing with delivery firms to try to avoid shipping bottlenecks for target, buying delivery ship has paid off big with same day delivery a huge jump in that. macy's teamed up with doordash best buy is partnering with

inta instaca instacart. and you need all of these solutions, but for the retailer, it is a bit of dealing with a frenemy. the key is making sure that they maintain the customer data and relationship over time because that is the real valuable asset here that customer data. >> i heard brian talking with an analyst in the last hour and the analyst said that the big shopping item on black friday is going to be apparel. brian made a great point, which is who needs new cloths 124 we're all wearing the same due pid thing again a stupid thing again and again because we have nowhere to go. >> we're wearing the same thing again and again, i think that there is a bit of pent up demand you know, macy's was saying that they think that this time next year, you will see huge pent up demand if there is a vaccine and most people are vaccinated they will want to get out. i think the fact that we're not spending on travel makes people decide that they want to treat themselves and what is interesting when you

look at for example nordstrom's results, they had better results in their full price than they did in their off price sales so i think people are sort of substituting and saying, all right, i'm stuck at home, i can't go out, at least i'll wear a nice sweater i bought shoes i don't know, the shoes make me happy. >> yeah, i saw a storyoff the weekend about people dressing up again just to go pick up the kids somewhere because hey, sick of not dressing up and ilg say my s will say my sou for dinner i didn't think he had it will in him. bertha, thank you. a lot we'll be watching. and in the next hour, don't miss imran kahn joining us live at 7:20 and we'll ask him some questions about what is hot right now too.

unbelievable a lot to talk about in retail land meantime, when we can back, a lot more this morning on the stock market and what stocks to watch including shares of hp getting a big pop. plus much more as you might imagine on dow 30,000, what is behind and what is next for the stock market in its best month since 1987 and a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers ing i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security?

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box. we have headlines to tell you about. hp reporting better than expected fourth quarter earnings in revenue the company continuing to get a boost from strong pc sales this due to remote work and learning, that helped offset some of the slump from office spending and you are looking at shares rising this morning about 5.5% in the pre-market. meantime dell technologies also beating the street on the top and bottom lines, company sales for its subscription and software as a service business, they surpassed estimates and meantime stripe reportedly in talks to raise more money, bloomberg reporting new funding round could value the financial tech company at more than $70 billion. perhaps as much as 1$100 billion $100 billion private company fascinating. and take a look at futures this hour after surpassing the 30,000 mark yesterday dow looks like it would open down about 64 points

the nasdaq looking to open 17 points higher, the s&p 500 off about four points if we opened up right now becky. thanks and when we come back, we'll talk about dow 30,000. we'll talk to two market strategists about what to do with your money next given the huge gains that we've seen the not just with dow, but all the major averages, all setting new highs yesterday. and then talking turkey, it is a "squawk box" tradition, we'll hear from the folks behind the r burterball butterball turkey hotline. and as consumers shift to digital. and you can watch or listen to us live anytime on the cnbc app.

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you might have heard this, but the dow closing above 30,000 for the first time ever yesterday. it is on pace for its best month since january of 1987. and if we can close above of 30,164 in the next couple sessions, the dow will officially post its best month since january of 1976.

the record before that, i have absolutely no idea all right. the dow still firmly positive on the year of course big tech has been a big part of the story. but will 2021 bring in a new hot trade along with a new year? we're joined by eugene profit and also anthony woodside. ge gene, i'll start with you. every dow stock is higher this month, but apple and microsoft, are actually near the bottom some of the faang stocks have been underperforming do you think thatomaly or are yg that there are better places now to put your coin >> yes, i own both microsoft and apple and i'm still going to hold them. it is not surprising because of the valuations that those stocks

have taken a bit of a pause. and money has rotated to the lower type valuation stocks going into 2021, right so even though they have not performed as well in november, i think that in 2021 you will still be well rewarded owning microsoft and apple. i think one other thing that is showing up quite frequently, even though you have positive earnings announcements and names that have performed very well, you are starting to not see stock performance from those names as readily as stocks that have performed less well take best buy as case in point versus what is going on this morning in in other words strom's. online sales at best buy were phenomenal the dayafter the stock traded well. you saw the same thing in the technology space so i'm not surprised that it has taken a pause. i think that it is healthy and i do think that they will outperform sort of the valuation blessed stocks in 2021 >> yeah, everybody filling up

their homes with flat panel tvs. anthony, i tweeted this out the other day and i meant it sort of tongue in cheek, but trying to make a point the stock market is up, the bond market etf is up, home prices are up, cryptocurrencies are up, lumber prices are up, commodities are up, i mean everything is up and yet you have millions on main street unemployed and an unsure path for a second stimulus plan has the global market as a whole gotten ahead of itself at all? we have a market for everything. >> yeah, definitely we've seen strong financial market performance here but i think what you are seeing the market developments that you are seeing are largely predicated on an array of positive news, first of all the positive vaccine news, we have three credible treatments that might come online in the next few months so i think what investors are focusing on, they are pivoting

towards the reopening theme and that is why you have seen sectors not just in stocks but fixed income markets as well that have been characterized by an outperformance of covid disrupted sectors. so i hear you on the disconnect between main street and wall street, but we did think tho thr days are ahead given the vaccine news >> and so let me follow up we've seen money market funds $1.5 trillion with a t globally. where is the money coming from >> what we've seen is that you've seen a lot of investors that had money parked on the sidelines there, and then you have also seen a positive yield around the globe here. so now investors are focused on the fact that they want to find higher yielding alternatives the left tail risk that we had basically not knowing on how the pandemic was going to evolve,

some of that left tail risk are has been removed and that has given investors more confidence to start to go into more risky asset classes here as well so i think that you are seeing investors become a little bit more confident on the outlook given that the vaccines are set to come online here. >> yeah, and eugene, i do wonder what 2021 will bring inin 2022, obviously we'll have the vaccines, people spend their money on travel, things that they would not or could not spend their money on this year what are your clients telling you about their plans? they are probably worried about taxes a bit, they made a lot of money in equities. but they are looking forward to the future what are their big worries and thoughts right now heading into the new year which can't get here fast enough >> right well, they are concerned about being left behind because sentiment is so positive, when you run a diversified portfolio with risk control, you won't participate in the 500 degree

tesla increase because you will be trimming that stock all the way up and if you stick to your valuation discipline, you will be selling more tesla than you are buying even though we still own it so let me give you a counter point. last time sentiment was this high was february of 2020. and then december of 2017. both times you had a 20% drop. and even though investors are looking through the first quarter of next year on to positive pandemic resolution, i think that if november is the best month since january of 1987, let me remind you what happened later in 1987 where you had a big drop in the market, right? i'm not pore tending that, but i think that sentiment is priced to perfection and so i'm telling my clients to maintain risk control discipline, let's get the portfolios rebalanced and bar bells going into 2021. appreciate what we got in 2020

surprisingly, but let's make certain we don't lose a great part of it trying to capture all of it in 2021. >> that is a great point and by the way in '76, i mean, forget we had this boom month and then stocks did nothing for like the next five years your point is well taken eugene, anthony, happy thanksgiving to you both be well. and we'll get practical. a little news that you can use we have turkey questions and we also have answers. theutterball hotline i open and that is next even if it looks a little different this year don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. you will get interviews, original content, and behind the scenes access. look for us on apple podcasts or on your favorite podcast app

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welcome back, everybody. while this thanksgiving will look different for many families across the country. i'm cooking a thanksgiving turkey for the first time ever by myself without the help of my mom, my mother-in-law, my grandma or anybody else out there. i can't imagine i'm the only one. have you been getting more calls than usual >> we have, becky.

thanks for having us this morning. we're thrilled to be with you. we've been getting a lot of calls this year. we found that through our research a lot of people are still going to have thanksgiving but to your point, they're going to be smaller get-togethers. they're going to be smaller parties and not have the help they had before. we have a lot of first-time hosts that are calling themselves up, texting us, going to our website and emailing us folks can reach us at 1-800-butterball everything from what turkey to select, how to cook the turkey so it comes out beautiful. we're here all day today, all day thanksgiving day and the day after. here until christmas eve, actually, to help answer all of your turkey questions. >> what's the most important tip you can give a first-time chef who, again, doing this by themselves in terms of what you need to absolutely make sure you

don't do what else should i be checking should i be basting it >> yeah, absolutely. the number one tip is to make sure that you have a reliable meat thermometer, something that i have right here. this is the way that you find out if you're cooking your turkey to the proper temperature for food safety purposes but also for the best eating quality. we recommend that you take your turkey and you take the temperature of the turkey when it comes out of the oven and make sure that you check it in the breast it needs to be cooked to 170 degrees. in the thigh to 180 degrees. if you choose to stuff your turkey, you check the stuffing temperature and that needs to be cooked to 165 degrees. but the first-time cooks, go to the butterball website we have a series of how-to videos how to roast a turkey, how to grill a turkey, how to prepare it we also have frequently asked questions there. we also have the talk line people can call.

you can chat us. you can email us however you want to get ahold of us the first-time cook should have a plan know what time the turkey should go in. how long it's going to take. how long they need to rest it andcarve it and put away the leftovers within two hours if you have that information, you have a successful thanksgiving. >> my inclination is to go ahead and baste it a bunch of times, but how often should i be doing that by taking it out of the oven and opening the lid am i extending the cooking time >> you actually really are extending the cooking time everybody's anxious to eat so the last thing they want to do is have to wait. the great thing about the butterball turkeys is they're self-basting there is no need to baste the turkey if you're using a butterball turkey. every time you open the door, you're letting the heat out. that oven has to recover the only thick you need to open

the oven door for is to check the temperature which you do 2/3 of the way through if you do that, you will have a perfectly browned turkey like we see here because it is self-basting basting -- all basting is going to do is color the outside of it a little bit more. it's not going to make the meat juicy. the way to have the meat juicy and dependable it's good every time, again, 170 degree temperature in the breast of the turkey is the way you could ensure that. >> bill, thank you for your time we appreciate it know you'll be getting a lot of calls. we appreciate you taking time with us today. folks at home, if you are concerned about not seeing your loved ones over thanksgiving, that's a terrible thing. i know a lot of people are struggling with that, but really we're the thankful ones. you're going to be able to have food on your table what i'd like you to think about are those not fortunate enough to not have food on their table. many fellow citizens are hungry,

going without meals, one or even two meals a day. struggling to find food. the latest statistics i heard were one in four americans are not getting enough food because they can't afford it right now that's the highest level since the great depression shep smith talked about this last night he interviewed the san antonio food bank. he said what you can do is reach out to feeding america.org if you are lucky enough to be able to, consider giving to your local food bank. you can look it up at feeding america.org. be grateful and be thinking about our citizens who don't have as much as we do. brian, i'll send it over to you. >> yes well said here in central new jersey, becky. the rescue mission of trenton and the trenton area soup kitchen are two good charities as well. there are food lines ten hours long in houston by car a couple of weeks ago. coming up, we'll get back to the markets of pimlico

he pretty much called the march lows and you don't want to miss what he has to say. the always outspoken mr. mccu mcculley coming up dow futures off 57

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

dow 30,000 the blue chip index closing above that level for the first time ever. now on track for the highest number since 1987. what to watch coming up. the busiest travel day of the year is here but it comes with a twist phil lebeau joins us from o'hare in chicago what to expect when you head to your holiday destination. the business of beer that's right, beer today is normally one of the busiest days of the year with bars with ybut with restriction early closings, will it hurt the bottom line for molson coors we'll ask the ceo as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc

i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick brian sullivan is in for joe kernen on this wednesday ahead of thanksgiving. take a look at u.s. equity futures a day after we crossed the 30,000 mark. dow looks like it would open down off 45 points nasdaq looking higher, 32 points and the s&p 500, off marginally in the red right now brian? breaking right now are the weekly numbers on mortgage applications let's find out if the housing market remains red hot diana olick joins us how do the numbers look? >> reporter: it does brian, look, mortgage rates have set new record lows more than a dozen times this year and they did it again last week that caused mortgage demands to refinance applications to the highest since pay level.

volume was 79% higher annually, and that's because the average rate on the 30 year fixed fell to a survey low of 2.92% from 2.99 from a 20% downpayment. while more than 4 million borrowers have already refinanced their home loans, more than 19 million more could save substantially still through a refinance. that's according to a recent calculation by black knight. tonight's annual is a full percentage lower than it was a year ago home buyers getting added incentive from today's rates despite sharp increases in home prices mortgage applications to buy a home rose 4% we're a nice strong 19% higher than the same week one year ago. brian? >> any sign at all then? it doesn't appear that things are cooling off, diane this is normally a slow time >> reporter: yeah. this is the time of year when we say shut off the lights and we'll see you again in january

no, we've seen very strong demand the problem as always this year has been supply. that's the only thick that could possibly bring the numbers down. simply not enough homes for sale demand is there. >> can't sell what's not for sale diane olick, big numbers there have a great thanksgiving. >> you, too. today is expected to be the busiest day for the airlines since the pandemic started back in march with more than 1 million people expected to fly somewhere for the long holiday weekend. phil lebeau joins us and he has more on that front and at the front lines. phil, good to see you. >> reporter: here at o'hare airport. we will see a busier day than we usually see over the last several months that's because of thanksgiving being one of the busier travel holidays what are the airlines expecting? 1.1 million people are expected to fly today and sunday will be the two busiest days of this holiday

weekend, and that's the most since before the pandemic. in terms of passenger levels though, while it is busier, we are a long ways from normal. this week passenger levels have been down about 57%. they're expected to be down anywhere from 52 to 55% for this entire week. for the airlines, however, along with the rest of the market, they have moved higher they are tempering expectations for holiday travel telling people, look, we expect it to be down anywhere from 50 to 55% where they can, they are trying to add flights we've talked about this over the last couple of weeks a number of airlines have added flights to florida as the demand for last-minute bookings to florida have increased but the one thing that we are noticing, becky, as we are out here at the airport, we were out here last week as well, people saying it's not bad flying given the protocols, wearing a mask, being socially distanced it's the socially distant part people struggle with especially

at the gates people are so used to hovering in because they want to get on the plane. what we're hearing from people is back off a little bit you're going to get on your flight, just give people a little bit more space. that's probably the one difference i noticed this year compared to past thanksgiving weekends. >> i've never understood that unless you refuse to pack any luggage. keep your space, keep your distance especially this go around. >> good advice. >> great to see you. good to see you. >> you, too. >> we know you'll be checking this out have a great thanksgiving day weekend. take care. >> you, too, becky take care. >> thanks. andrew. okay thanks, becky. when we come back on the other side of the break, the dow's historic climb to above 30,000

former pimco chief economist paul mcculley is going to be here after there tta bako lk all about it "squawk box" returns after this. everyone wakes up every morning to a world that must keep turning. the world can't stop, so neither can we. because the things we make, help make the world go round. they make it cleaner, healthier, and more connected. it's what we build that keeps things moving forward.

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all right. welcome back your next guest well known to the audience and a guy who pretty much called the bottom of the market back on march 23rd.

he's now here to talk about what got us to this point and where we might be going next with markets, the economy our friend, paul mcculley. georgetown mcdonagh school of business former pimco chief business economist. we said all the stuff that's happening, i asked you, did the fed get it right you said fed and treasury got it right. things would pick up from here i don't know if you thought you would be this much right look into your crystalball, what do you see happening how? >> things look good although they're giddy. reflecting on what's going on back in march, you're a lawyer, i'll use a legal term, it was a macro force majeure event. it was an act of god and the private sector really couldn't deal with such a macro force majeure event, only our government could and we could see that our government were responding with

an all-in approach of the fed and the treasury acting as one and that was the right response. i thought it would work and i thought it would turn the market and effectively that's what happened. >> well, they were really slow when we talked about it in 2007 and 2008 maybe they learned their lesson. they reacted i think your word was boltly th lboldly this time we'll have a new treasury head, likely janet yellen. we could have changeover at the federal reserve. the names you know, the names you're hearing, the names you know, are you can have doesn't any new administration, treasury, fed, whatever it might be may be just as dovish or perhaps even more so >> i am very enthusiastic, and that's putting it mildly, about president-elect biden's selection of janet yellen to run treasury it was truly an inspired choice and i think the cooperation between the fed and the treasury

going forward in the new administration will be exquisite. so i have no concerns on that front whatsoever after the inauguration it's a matter of getting from here and there quite frankly on treasury fed cooperation >> the fed's mandate, one of them is to maximize employment we forget also, we shouldn't, there are millions of people that are unemployed. travel, hospitality, leisure, depression right now, paul, we know that. do you believe the federal reserve is going to keep that front end of the yield curve pretty much just tacked right on zero for as long as they need to get employment up, even if that takes years? in other words, could we have a fed funds rate below 1% and a1 year yield below 1 or 1.5% for five to ten years to come? >> certainly for the next five years i think would be a reasonable expectation

i can't stress enough how important the fed's strategic framework review was, which was announced in august and then fine tuned in september when the fed did a huge, epic turn to making maximum employment. not just full employment but maximum employment its number one objective and promised, unambiguously promised that it would not get off of zero until it achieved maximum employment, and then it would start thinking about maybe getting off of zero if inflation was 2% or higher. so this was a profound change in the strategy of the fed and their objective function is maximum employment and higher inflation, which means zero for as far as the eye can see until we get to those two conditions >> i just wonder though, paul,

how much power they're going to have this is not a traditional downturn caused by an over heated economy and then inflation, this is a pandemic. to your point, act of god. force majeure. government mandated shutdowns in many areas a lot of people are out of work because their workplace has been shut down by the government and the pandemic what kind of power does the federal reserve and monetary policy, fiscal policy from the treasury have over a virus >> i'm glad you said or fisc fi policy because it is a fiscal policy issue going forward, not a fed policy issue the fed is going to be super accommodative at zero as far as the eye can see, but from the standpoint of getting fiscal transfers to exactly those people you are talking about, that is an issue for congress. and therein it gets politically messy, we've seen that obviously

for the last five, six months. but it really is a fiscal policy issue going forward of dealing with the dark underbelly of capitalism which is essentially the lower income group being particularly hit by this event so it's really a fiscal policy issue. so you guys are going to have to learn how to talk a lot about politics as opposed to a lot about the fed. >> hey, paul on that point there have been a lot of agreement that this should be targeted this time around, it should really go to those most in need, and i think that's kind of code for saying don't send out a $1200 stimulus check to everybody that's been the consensus in washington every time we have a politician on, every time you talk to business leaders, that's what they're thinking the longer this has gone on the more pain it's put on those who don't have a job, who can't work because their kids are staying home the more incredible pain that they're feeling. the higher you're seeing the

number of people who can't afford to feed themselves at this point have we moved past the point where targeted is going to work because congress has been sitting on its hands for so long. >> as long as we're talking about fiscal policy, we're talking about the right policy to analytically you can say let's go target it, and i would certainly agree with that, but as a practical matter, if you just need to do a helicopter drop of money, which actually leads to people who don't need it getting money, then that's an acceptable outcome to me because the people you're talking about need the money and if we have to give money to rich people too, i will hold my nose and say, okay, but fundamentally we needs to have a fiscal policy that is targeted >> but you don't have to give it to rich people too you can say the $1200 should go to anybody making below a certain amount

it doesn't have to go to everybody everywhere you may not be hitting the people who are the most hard-hit alone but it doesn't have to go to rich people too. >> you and i are sitting in the same church singing out of the sim hymnal i agree with you congress has the ability to do exactly what you're talking about. it's an issue of whether or not mitch mcconnell and his crowd are willing to do that if they are, then god bless them but, you know, i don't want to be enthusiastic yet that mitch mcconnell is going to be cooperative. >> paul, we're going to leave it there even though i guess we've got a lot of reading up to do about politics heading into 2021 great call back in march, buddy. best to you and yours see you soon. >> my pleasure. coming up, the holiday shopping season is officially here, and we have already seen some strong numbers from many retailers. we're going to speak to a man who led alibaba's ipo.

here's some names in the online retail space, and as we head to break, here's today's aflac trivia question. which popular christmas song was originally written for thanksgiving i have no clue do you know? the answer when we return. aflac! now tell me, what does aflac do? aflac pays you money directly to help with unexpected medical bills. and is aflac health insurance? no, but it can help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover! that's right. are there any questions? -coach! -yes? can i get one of those cool blue blazers? you know i can't play favorites. alright let's talk coverage. it's go time! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. mmm hmm! get to know us at aflac.com mmm hmm!

oh, i will rescue you -well, audrey's expecting... -twins! grandparents! we want to put money aside for them, so...change in plans. alright, let's see what we can adjust. ♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. okay. mom, are you painting again? you could sell these. lemme guess, change in plans? at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan.

♪ ♪ ♪ trees looking better and better now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. which popular christmas song was originally written for thanksgiving the answer, believe it or not, "jingle bells. makes sense. over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go not this year, but usually andrew >> thanks, becky. meantime, during this holiday season let's talk a little bit about retail. the national retail federation predicting online sales to grow 20 to 30% from last year joining us now on the strength he's seen from the american

consumers. aman, great to see you we're seeing relatively positive numbers, healthy numbers for the retail sector. some companies blowing through expectations, i should say, in a very positive way. what are you seeing? >> yeah, hi, andrew. thanks for having me so we are seeing that what consumers are buying, the mix has been shifting. so, for example, if you look at home category, we are seeing very strong growth home category sales are up 150% from q1. 18% of our sales are home versus 8% pre-covid another big category that we're seeing very strong growth is in the beauty and wellness. that's now 17% of our sales versus 7% in q1. but then if you look at fashion category, people are not really going out, they're staying home. those categories are struggling. women dresses is down 43% year

over year. >> when you think about the costs associated with this, so the up side is we're hearing some great numbers in terms of what seems like a relatively healthy consumer, the k-shaped recovery, those with money are spending it, those without unfortunately are not participating in this, but the question i'd ask is you keep hearing from companies who say, you know what, sales are up but also our shipping costs are going up then we're going to get into a whole return story in terms of what the cost is to actually handle some of these returns a lot of people are buying multiple sizes of the same thing, trying them on at home, sending them back. this causes and creates substantial costs. >> so good question. i think if you look at your return costs it's actually down because people are buying more for their home and product for their beauty and wellness. people are actually not returning product very much.

historically we saw very strong return rate for fashion categories because people buy those things and they'll try which one they would like to keep it for going out, but now people are not buying fashions for instance, dresses are down greatly. that's taking the return rate down shipping costs, yeah, shipping costs are going up during the holiday shipping costs usually goes up. we see surcharge and all of our shipping partners are stretched. that's a challenge we're trying to navigate. >> when you look out over the next 12 months in terms of the mix of what you intend to sell, you've got to make a little bit of a bet, i imagine. you're not in the inventory business per se, but to some degree you are in terms of what thebuyers should be buying in the future if you think we actually do get a vaccine, whether you think that this sort of casual work from home, stay at home look, sneakers with

suits becomes the new normal or do you think we actually move from a fashion perspective into a sort of everyone's going to get as dressed up as humanly possible because they haven't gone out and gotten dressed up before for a while >> so, first of all, i think what we're trying to be is be an aggregate of our all independent and we want to have as broad a selection as possible. even our selection has grown 10 x year over year and i expect it will continue. in terms of answering your questions, look, i think humans are social animal. people will go out and meet other people and -- but i doubt we're going to go back 100% how the world was. probably that's not going to happen i think that's a fundamental crisis that changed all of us. are we going to stay home and do zoom all day no but are we going to go back and

do exactly how things were in precovid next summer probably not either. i think what we're trying to do is make sure we have the broadest selection of direct to consumer. >> imram, before we let you go, we've been showing a lot of stocks on the screen including the biggies, amazons, wa walmarts, targets. how much do you believe there's been a fundamental shift in the consumer in terms of a consolidation in using those services to buy sometimes fashion, sometimes other brands that they historically might have gone direct to consumer, gone to smaller stores and whether you think that is now locked in going forward or that was a temporary phenomenon >> i fundamentally believe that consumers are incredibly demanding and consumers will

continue to be demanding and what internet has done, it democratizes for consumers who provide the best services and who provide the best value who will continue to provide the best value and best services will win over the long term. i don't think consumers are really -- the loyalty for the consumers on the internet, it's likely who is providing the best value and services. >> nice to see you, happy thanksgiving >> happy thanksgiving. >> good to see you still to come on "squawk box" today, we're going to be talking about -- we'll be talking with dr. scott gottleib about the government's plans to have a practice run of the coronavirus distribution networks as they await emergency approval we'll get the latest on that and the latest from dr. gottleib right after this break welcome to a better way to live.

is that your home? dun, dun ,dun. hold on, stop! you accessorize with a sloth? this is belt. [ chuckling ] great sash. oo-la la!

the cdc is considering

shortening the quarantine period for those who may have been exposed to covid-19. right now there's a two-week waiting period if you've been exposed. in the coming weeks that could be dropped down to 7 to 10 days. joining us is scott gottleib dr. gottleib, what's the science behind this? does it make sense to? >> it does make sense. i mean, frankly, we probably should have done this sooner the reality is when you look at when people ultimately contract covid after an exposure, the vast majority of people become contagious, become infected within three to five days. there are outliers there are people who would contract the illness 7 to 10 days after exposure, but the number of people we've seen that will contract the infection a full two weeks after their documented exposure is very small. so we need to weigh the practicality of the recommendations we're issuing against what benefits we're going to derive from them.

asking people to quarantine for a full two weeks because of an exposure is just going to drive more people not to comply with the rules. we're better off doing something that's practical 7 to 10 days will capture the vast majority. >> when they say 7 to 10 days, doesn't that automatically people will say, seven days and i'm out? >> well, i think most people right now are shortening it on their own and so that's part of what's probably driving cdc to reconsider this. the data is the data when you look at the bell curve of people who will have a documented infection two weeks after an exposure, it's exceedingly small. you're talking about case reports, the vast majority of people will contract it within a very short period of time. i think most people are probably self-isolating for about a week and letting themselves out. >> yeah. that makes sense to me i guess my only question would be is if you were somebody who gets an infection and it's an

asymptomatic infection and seven days later you don't have any symptoms, you can go back to work, school, being out in the community, is there a way to make sure you can get testing even for asymptomatic people so seven days later, you're clear and can go back out. the guidelines have moved and changed. i'm not sure what you're entirely supposed to do at a lot of different points with things. >> yeah. the evidence is that people who are truly asymptomatic, not just pre-symptomatic but they truly stay a asim tymptomaticasymptomc their period of contagion doesn't last for as long of a time people who are asymptomatic are less contagious. they're contagious for a shorter period of time by the end of a seven or ten-day period you're not going to be that contagious anymore. nothing will be fool proof

what you are trying to do is balance the expectations and you're better with someone sticking with a routine rather than putting out recommendations that aren't practical and people ignore them and you aren't doing any good in that scenario. >> yeah, i get that entirely i'm confused by the 7 to 10 days thing. if 7 days is fine, let me go in 7 days that's what businesses will do that's what schools will do. they'll say 7 to 10 days means 7 days >> right i think they're going to end up with one or the other or they're going to have some recommendation that's tied to the nature of the exposure, perhaps, or whether or not you develop certain symptoms within a time frame i suspect it will end up around 10 days. that's where most people are right now in the real world so i think the cdc is going to end up there. they should have reconsidered this earlier what you're seeing is a cdc becoming a little bit more activist now maybe it has a little bit more

freedom to operate this is something that should have been revisited, in my view, earlier. >> dr. gottleib, wanted to ask you about these tests that apparently the government is pursuing right now in terms of distribution so there's actually ongoing apparently live tests where they're, you know, distributing using these kinds of chilled boxes to get the vaccine to see how this distribution -- this cold distribution chain will work what do you think we need to be looking for over the next week or two in terms of what kind of transparency we may or may not hear about in terms of what took place? >> right look as you know i'm on the board of pfizer pfizer has the vaccine that needs to be stored at the very cold temperature i'm not that concerned about the logistics. i think the logistics are worked out between the manufacturer and the supply chain the cargo carriers, the airlines, commercial airlines are going to be carrying these in the belly of the plane.

i think that the things that need to be worked out are who's going to get it and how we're going to make sure that the target population gets it inside the states that's going to be the complicated part in my view. the vaccine distribution sites, making sure the people who are eligible to receive the vaccine can get into the sites that the government's designated to be the distribution sites they're exerting very tight control. that will create some friction for patients we need to make sure we're not locking out patients that face obstacles to getting care. they're changing the way they're going to distribute the vaccine. they were going to give the states an allocation for the number of people that fit the criteria for the vaccine now they're going to distribute it to states with a population basis. when they looked at the modeling, how many are above the age of 65, have diabetes, it ended up being a comparable number to the overall age of the states they built a system to designate

how many people are eligible now they'll go to a straight population count they're thinking about holding back some vaccine to make sure everyone who gets the first dose can get the second dose. i think the more preferable thing to do is push out as much vaccine as possible. get as many first doses and feel confident it will happen come january or february. >> two more questions for you, scott. one is just the confidence that you have that there's going to be effectively 100% uptake on the doses distributed. if 20 million go out, 20 million immediately get injected in people's arms. you know, we still have a confidence issue when you look at some of the polling in this country about whether they anticipate taking it there's some who say they will take it but even some of those people will say, sure, i'll take

it, after, you know, the first 50 million people take it and they've had it for three months or whatever it may be. >> well, the federal government's built a system to observe very tight control over literally each individual vaccine. they could redirect shots if they think they're not being used i think initially the vaccine that gets shipped and dropped is going to get used. you will have a subset of distribution points where there's going to be a lot of flow, a lot of patients coming into those distribution points at least the initial eligible population will be motivated the people indicated first are people who are high risk and who are coming in to get the vaccine. you're also going to be distributing it at sites like nursing homes, long term care facilities and you can go in and make sure you use up the available supply that you brought with you for a day i'm not worried about the vaccine being wasted further in you'll have vaccine

shipping to distribution points. that will be a nice problem to have, quite frankly, in 2021 it means we're pushing it out to smaller doctor practices at that point. >> just on the distribution front, you talked about airplanes and putting in the underbellies of some commercial flights. sarah who runs the flight attendant union in this country. one of the arguments she made frankly for supporting the airlines is very much this, the distribution of the vaccine and how necessary it is and the fact that fedex and ups, she argued, can't do this on their own do you agree with that assessment >> well, i think initially the distribution system is going to be more circumscribe we won't be distributing that much vaccine as you get further into this, that's true. we rely on commercial airlines

and the belly of planes for a lot of cargo transport the logistics that do just cargo can't do all of the cargo including medical supplies there is some truth to that. >> on that point, i wanted to mention that i heard from fed ex yesterday because i was under the impression fed ex and ups would be dealing with this. she says fed ex has the largest cargo fleet of airplanes, 667, refrigerated trucks, ultra cool freezers, temperature control freezers to try to help safely move this around i think we are in good hands on a lot of these levels. scott, the one thing i wanted to ask you, the note that came out from the health and human services secretary azar about the trials they're running to see how the system is ready to deliver these, we could be ready to go within days of december

10th, once the fda gives us the go ahead this could be shipped out in massive supplies starting very rapidly. >> yeah, they're going to get these out very quickly i wouldn't expect them to get it all out very quickly they'll get a certain amount out and say they've done it. they're going to want to demonstrate this moved out quickly into the market. by the time we distribute the bulk of the vaccine that's available right now, define the eligible population, reach out to them so that they can come in and we can push it out into the places where they're living and get them vaccinated, that's the bigger challenge that last mile challenge is the big challenge. i'm pretty confident in that and i think it will be the last mile that will be the challenge in the communities, getting people into the distribution sites or getting it out into the communities, getting it into the homes to vaccinate people who

are eligible for this. defining who they are. there's an argument over who should be first up who should get the vaccine. we'll need to settle that politically. >> this may come out of left field here, but i'm serious, the most stolen thing, one of, is baby formula we know how valuable that is you just talked to andrew and becky about keeping this cold and keeping it workable. do we need to worry about keeping the vaccines safe? i'm serious. could you see a black market this is life changing and life saving stuff that maybe won't have a lot of numerical value to certain people but certainly staying alive does do we need to worry about protecting it from a physical perspective? >> they are. your point's well taken. there is security provided for this and the way that they're going to be shipped is going to be done in a way that secures the supply chain in terms of just obscuring what's being shipped. so tlsz some thinking around that that's part of why hhs has

developed a system to tightly control the distribution and tracking of these vaccines quite frankly to make sure nothing falls off the back of a truck. >> dr. gottleib, thank you very much on my list of things that i'm thankful for this year, you're definitely on this list. we've appreciated the information you've been giving us. >> thanks, becky. >> happy thanksgiving. we'll see you next week. >> same to you thanks a lot. >> hear, hear. i think we all agree with that on behalf of all the "squawk" watchers out there. when we return, we'll talk about what's moving in this pre-market this morning. then the booming business of beers. the ceo of molson coors will be joining us to discuss the company's recent stock performance and the entry into the red hot seltzer market you don't want to ssmi it. "squawk" returns right after this with a drink in our hand. let's get checked for a full range of conditions.

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welcome back to "squawk box. good morning will the markets add today to what has already been the best month for the dow in decades the answer is not really clear right now, at least not yet. dow futures down 53. nasdaq is up we'll maybe put it out there in the middle by the way, the s&p is at 3635

the dow on pace for the best month since january of '87 here's what may be a more amazing stat there are 3500 stocks on the s&p 500 up more than 25% just this month. 35 of those are up more than 40%. just in november unbelievable all right. in the meantime, t-shirts, luxury retail and tesla in focus today. first up, the gap. shares getting crushed down 10%. earnings per share missing consensus by 7 cents costs rose as well stock down 10. nordstrom going in the opposite direction of gap it made 34 cents a share the median estimate was for a loss nordstrom saw a 37% jump we're on tesla watch today we're on tesla watch every day, right? the stop is up more than 500% this year alone. it has jumped more than 30%

since the s&p 500 announcement back on september 15th company topping 500 billion in market cap the largest company to ever be admitted to the s&p 500. it is a couple hundred bill short of facebook but is now bigger than visa tesla in rarified air. coming up. booze news that you can use for the holiday season the ceo of molson coors. launching the heart seltzer. up 44% molson coors ceo is on tap on tap next.

welcome back, everybody. certainly been a weird year for booze. a weird year for a lot of reasons. local orders are limiting the number of customers and hours that bars and restaurants can be open that's impacted the commercial side of the spirits business but on the other hand, beer and other wines, hard sell ttzers he benefitted from people drinking at home. gavin, it's a pleasure to have you on it looks like we can finally start to see the other side of this you heard the vaccine news, treatment news we're just waiting on 2021 what kind of a year has it been?

unfortunately i've read a lot of people are drinking more because there's not much else to do. what are you forecasting for the next 6 to 12 months? >> good morning. thank you for having me on it's been a topsy-turvy year for sure in the beginning it was difficult for us to plan and get all of the beer out of our breweries. we've gotten good at it. i'm feeling good about where we are in terms of beer supply. we've seen a huge surge in off premise to on premise. we're migrating back to brands they know, they have trust and that's benefitted miller lite for us that's a trend i would expect to continue i would expect a continuation why the ecommerce space. folk in the beginning didn't know you could buy beer online we've seen a huge spike in online purchasing and i would expect that to continue.

>> the average rating on your stock is on hold to pull the it blunt bring the analyst community has completely when i ha which haved on your stock whampt have they gotten wrong >> we've drafted a plan to gro top line growth to change the shape of our portfolio we've done that over the last year despite the pandemic. we've done a number of deals over the last two months all in the direction of improving our premium portfolio. i think the market is recognizing that >> you know, we look at molson coors. look at the name, molson coors two beers. you got together and here we are talking about hard seltzers and all these combination spirits.

do we need to stop thinking of you guys as a beer company maybe a name change is in order, gavin? i'm only half kidding because your sales mix continues to evolve dramatically towards non-beer items >> no. look i mean, miller lite, coors light, molson canadian are big brands for us. going back to big, trusted brands miller lite, coors lite up double digits. we're sending a significant amount of money behind the holiday programs miller lite is up 12 x from the fourth quarter last year and having said that, the sell the s seltzer market is big and growing. we have two in play and another two coming when they come out we'll have the most differentiated seltzer portfolio. miller lite, coors lite and

molson, they are important to us. >> what can you tell us about the overallstate of the economy? i realize you have to have a lot of restaurants and places for entertainment that you would normally be serving. what kind of damage have you seen there how many businesses will go out of business? what will they look like in the post pandemic world? >> it's obviously devastating for the on premise but the off premise business has surged dra m particularically miller lite, coors lite, blue moon one of the leading brands growing also double digits consumers are finding their dollar goes further in the off premise. from our perspective, 14% has been hurt in the on premise. off premise has grown. >> gavin, ceo of molson coors.

next time we have you on we'll talk about the canada's market and even the non-alcoholic market best to you and yours over this thanksgiving thank you very much. >> look forward to it. thank you. thanks, brian. coming up when we return, senator john ba ras so he will join us as we talk about the presidential transition and the stimulus for small businesses. take a look at the biggest laggards in the s&p 500 this morning led the way by the gap that stock down 10% which reported disappointed earnings a big hour ahead on "squawk box. we're back after this. we use 11. eleven. why do an expense report from your phone when you can do it from a machine that jams? i just emailed my wife's social security number to the entire company instead of hr, so... please come back. how hard is your business software working for you? with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in one easy-to-use software.

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good morning the dow cracks 30,000 after a market slump of historic proportions this year. we've come all the way back and then some. we'll be watching stocks earlier this hour as we're about to get a flood of economic data. and california schemin the biggest employment scam in the history of the golden state. you don't want to miss it.

the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ ♪ good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc on this wednesday morning, a day before thanksgiving happy thanksgiving, everybody. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and brian dow set to open down 63 points s&p 500 off 3 points nasdaq up 21 points. we do have some breaking news to bring you at this hour sources telling me that the justice department is about to be announcing that it plans to require intuit to divest credit karma's tax business as part of that transaction for intuit to proceed with the $7.1 billion

acquisition of credit karma as part of the settlement, my understanding is that credit karma's tax business will be sold to square creating, effectively, a third competitor in this space. there has been some question about whether that intuit transaction with credit karma would be approved by the government my understanding is that effectively what will happen is department of justice will announce a case they will be bringing against the transaction to effectively block it and then announce simultaneously a settlement in which they -- credit karma tax business does get sold to square it's a bit reminiscent of how the department of justice's antitrust division approached the sprint t mobile transaction if you remember. they effectively sought to block that as part of a settlement to let it proceed they've created a new competitor by forcing those businesses to sell some of that spectrum,if

you remember, to echostar, the dish business, again, trying to create an extra competitor it's worth mentioning that intuit's turbo tax business which is the business people are concerned about in this case has 41 million customers credit karma's tax preparation business only has 2 million customers today but credit karma has about 100 million customers in total and that business is growing fast so the idea here from a regulatory perspective from what i understand is to allow the deal to go forward but to try to create a strong additional competitor square will be offering that service, from what i understand, as part of its square cash app so we will see how all of this works. that is the news for now you're looking at that stock on intuit up just a bit right now brian? >> yeah. it actually traded just higher now.

it had been down before this i guess, andrew, do you know how important or how key this was to this transaction or is the good news that the market's seeing here, it's going to get approved, they just have to do this divestiture they could be thinking, it's not a big deal having to spin it off. it's a question of who you spin it off to. square is no slouch. >> the interesting part is it's going to square and that that's part of the deal you're looking at the square stock. that's the one that's making the move in large stock because that had not really been in the mark, if you will, but that was going to be a possibility. there have obviously been questions about whether the intuit credit karma transaction unto itself would be approved by the government and we'll see we'll see. we'll see whether -- what square's able to do with that business it puts them in a different business for the first time as well but we're going to watch this and we'll wait to see more

i should also mention that my understanding of this is that the new york state attorney general's office has been in talks with intuit and credit karma and the department of justice so to the extent that there were questions about whether the transaction could get effectively approved by the department of justice but somehow the states could go after it, my understanding is that the new york state is effectively signing off on this settlement arrangement again, we're hoping to get more details shortly. >> all right breaking some news there on intuit great stuff, andrew. thank you very much for that. now we'll get back to the markets and the dow's record-breaking run. you might have heard this. yesterday we blew above 30k for the first time ever. we got close in february and the pandemic led us down 30% since then it's been a rocket ship

it went above 30,000 and closed above that we have a couple of trading days left in november and here's why we bring that up we're up 12.5% this month. on pace for the best day in the dow since 1987 if we add 120 points it would make it the dow's best month since january of 1976. joining us now to talk about some of the stocks that are most responsible for powering the dow past 30,000 is a man who needs no introduction but we're going to give him one. dominic chu. 1976, dom, bay city rollers, "i write the songs," barry manilow. >> "i write the songs that make the world". >> i don't write any songs here, brian, to your point, it's a massive run. it has been for the dow. record breaking. the reason why is it's been playing catchup for the better part of this year and it still has to play catchup even with the record-breaking run that

we've seen we're going to put some charts up to put it all in context for you. with that staggering run to 30,000, the dow is up a staggering, well, 5% this year take a look at salesforce, apple, microsoft those three stocks have the biggest percentage gains on a year-to-date basis the reason why i bring it up is because look at the nature of technology as it plays out for some of the best performers so far on the dow on a year-to-date basis. i'm going to put an asterisk here by salesforce that didn't come into the dow until august 31st. it replaced exxon mobil. a lot are big. salesforce is, by the way, one of the big movers here since it became part of the dow take a look at this other chart. this is one that's interesting as well. according to analyst projections, these are the three stocks that will have the biggest percentage gains in the coming year if their forecasts are correct. merck, notice it's been an

underperformer cisco systems, down 11% as well. microsoft up 36% by the way r, microsoft has a 1 gain this last chart is probably the one that's the most important arguably speaking. it's united health, home depot and salesforce >> that's important, those could drive the stocks in the future becky, those three stocks put together are roughly 20% of the overall index. pay attention to united health, home depot and of course newly minted salesforce.com. oh, by the way, because i'm not going to get to say it again i hope you, joe, andrew and

brian have a happy thanksgiving. >> we wish the same for you. happy thanksgiving we'll see you back here on friday. >> you bet, thanks >> thanks. in the meantime, president-elect biden is filling out the national security team the biggest pick so far for the business world is janet yellen biden plans to nominate her as treasury secretary before taking office he is supporting congressional democrats in their push to get a mental health trillion dollar stimulus package passed. joining us to talk about a stimulus, the presidential transition and much more is senator john barrasso. he's spent 24 yearsas an orthopaedic surgeon so we'll ask him about covid as well. first up, great to see you. >> great to be here. thank you, becky. >> let's talk about the stimulus plan some pressure to try to get things done. there are a lot of americans who are really suffering

it feels like congress has not done much of anything. i realize both sides have kind of dug in their heels and said this is where we stand what are the odds much us getting any sort of help to those people in the next month >> i'd like to see it done with paycheck protection, especially with the increased number of cases and some businesses having to shut down as a result you know, the republicans brought a targeted bill to do that to the floor of the senate. 52 republicans voted for it. every democrat voted no. it was $500 billion. a lot of money nancy pelosi and chuck schumer still living there on fantasy island have their $3 trillion proposal. a lot of it doesn't have to do with coronavirus i was actually optimistic when joe biden on monday said maybe we could do something that's smaller, more targeted, but pelosi and schumer, they said, no all or nothing, which i think is a terrible mistake when you take a look at the dow

right now, where we are with the economy, i think we still need targeted relief, but we can't go to a $3 trillion ad to the debt, not at this point. >> senator, i'd agree with you any side that says it's my way or the highway is in the wrong i don't think that it's going to be a $3 trillion bill but i think when president-elect biden says he thinks it should be a smaller, more targeted bill, i don't think he's talking about the $500 billion bill that the senate voted on down party lines. where do you think there's healthy room for the middle? you mentioned ppp. a lot of people would like to help the businesses that are struggling probably an extension of unemployment benefits is in order. schools need more money to make sure they can open or stay open. where do you think there is more room for compromise? >> certainly with getting kids safely back to school so they don't fall further behind. more money for vaccine distribution we have a great story to tell this thanksgiving of the vaccine that is going to get our economy back to work even sooner

i think we'd be doing even better if states weren't shutting down as some governors are doing right now. so there is area to work together you know, we need to fund the government that's coming up december 11 1t is the deadline for that there's a possibility as we do that funding that we combine it with targeted relief specifically related to the disease, people back to work and kids safely back to school >> are you in negotiations right now? you're one of the top leaders in the senate are you in negotiations to tie some of the coronavirus relief to the extend the government bill that would be a key. that's probably the only way anything gets passed before the inauguration in january. >> i think that's part of the discussions we were having we were having them heading up to thanksgiving. we'll be back monday over this week discussions are continuing >> as a doctor, you mentioned that you think some. states that are kind of putting additional restrictions on and

shutting down you'd rather not see. i do understand it's a debate over the economic damage that gets done and the continuing spread of this virus how should we be going about this what do you think about americans traveling over the holiday weekend? >> well, people know what to do to prevent the spread of the disease. we need to socially distance, wear a mask, and take the precautions that we know work. this is a time of -- we're so close with the vaccine we're going to start being able to vaccinate 20 million people next month but we're losing about 1,000 people a day on average. we lost 250,000 already. the vaccine, regrettably, has been politicized we can talk about that if you like we have a great story to tell about the vaccine because, look, you've seen this, becky. the numbers we hear, 95% effectiveness, it's better than that for people that have been in these studies, tens of thousands of people, some have gotten mild cases of coronavirus but nobody

that's gotten the vaccine has gotten seriously sick or died from it. so it's 100% effective in terms of preventing death. we just need to get to the point where it's widely distributed and that's going to happen at the end of next month and then 25 million every month after that >> senator, separately wanted to get your thoughts on the decision by the trump administration and secretary mnuchin to take back that $455 billion that the fed had in terms of unspent c.a.r.e.s. act money. in particular, there seems to be an issue now about what fund he's bringing it back into within treasury which would effectively require congress to approve its use in the future, potentially boxing in a treasury secretary yellen, if that turns out to be the case

i should say -- i should mention, rather, that the watchdog of the c.a.r.e.s. act fund just tweeted that mnuchin's plans were illegal and can be reversed next year i had taken this all at face value when it was first announced, but clearly it's going to make it harder if in fact these funds need to be spent in the future. >> i think it was the right decision by secretary mnuchin to bring back the money i would like to repurpose it to use it for additional paycheck protection loans they've worked great in wyoming. 13,000 of those loans over $1 billion for small businesses in wyoming but every state around the country has benefitted from that so i'd like to see that money repurchased. janet yellen has a very different approach in terms of what i do. she's much more akenzina in terms of government spending she's called for higher taxes and had her in jackson hole for

our federal reserve meeting. she has a different approach than i do. i agree with what secretary mnuchin has done. >> does that mean you won't vote for janet yellen as treasury secretary? >> i have -- i voted against her when she was brought up to be a -- confirmed for the federal reserve. everybody nominated after the inauguration in january is going to have to come for hearings, testify, answer questions and we'll make decisions at that time >> 95% in general. presidents get about 95% of their cabinet members approved by the senate out of formality obviously the people he's choosing may not have the same views you do will you give him that same benefit? >> what you know clearly is that when president trump came into office when the dow was -- has been up 60% in this four years, when he came into office he was blockaded every step along the

way to get his people and this cabinet nominated. it was obstruction all the way by the democrats i'm focused on the georgia election and making sure the republicans are still in the majority in the next congress so that we'll be able to have a much better say than if you had a 50-50 senate with a potential vice president kamala harris being the decided vote and slipping the majority to chuck schumer's side of the aisle. >> take that as a no senator barrasso, good to see you. happy thanksgiving we hope to see you soon. >> and to you. >> i was hoping on thanksgiving that we would all be so united. when we come back after this, would you pay thousands of dollars for an extra piece of mind on a flight during could he vitt we well, it doesn't matter what you say. we'll explain. new york city subways.

how is public transportation going to make it through aar hsh winter stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

put it mildly, flying is a different experience these days.

some airlines block off middle seats, some don't, some people still jam you up as you wait to board a flight even though we're all going to the same place. don't do that. with that aside, one company is banking on some rather extreme social in flight distancing, if you can afford it. who eps but robert frank to join us to talk more about flying private or semi-private. how does this work, robert >> reporter: that's a good way to describe it this is a new kind of hybrid travel model it's safer from a health perspective flying commercial but it's cheaper than flying private. blade has launched new scheduled jet service from new york to miami and new york to aspen where all the passengers are covid tested before the flight and they avoid crowded airports, this is the best part, by using a private blade terminal the service is called blade one. in partnership with global medical response at westchester airport, they get

tested by a nurse. they test negative, they go to the blade lounge and board the plane. the jet normally seats 65 passengers but here it's been retrofitted to only 16 seats you have a lot more seats. even for you, brian. they land at blade terminals in aspen or miami and they let to a waiting suv with drivers who have been tested secure end to end here the cost though, $2,250 each way between new york and miami and $3750 between new york and aspen. guys, this is still a lot cheaper than private jet service which right now would cost you about $20,000 for a plane new york to florida. the service, get this, is already old out for the next three weeks but it's going to run through april. a lot of people buying this for their parents, either going to florida or coming back and right now for health reasons they're willing to pay that price. back to you. >> yeah.

how about any other companies? anybody else talking about doing this kind of service, thinking about it, robert >> well, this new kind of shared private scheduled jet service is new. xo jet is doing something new. they're not requiring testing. the key here is to be able to get the benefits of a private jet terminal, not the crowded airports, but without paying the full fare of a private jet that's what's going to make it popular. >> okay. robert, thank you for that report we've got to get on one of these things we just do. meantime, the metropolitan transportation authority, which of course runs new york city subway, has released the 2021 budget and things are looking, i hate to say this as a new yorker, looking very grim. officials with the mta are saying without federal assistance transit agencies will face devastating layoffs and cuts impacting the national economy. here's more with that story.

i want to bring in pat voyea chairman and ceo of the mta. >> good morning. thanks for having me. >> what's really at stake here what does it look like >> what's really at stake is the economic revival of the new york city region and to a large extent the national economy. the mta carries 40% of public transit passengers in the entire country. new york is slightly above 10% of national gdp. if we don't get federal funding and our ask is $12 billion we may be forced to make service reductions on subways and buses up to 40% and on one hour railroad and metro-north 50% that would have a devastating impact on cumulative commuters, on transportation, on the new york economy and, frankly, would exacerbate social equity issues

we carry in an average day prior to the pandemic about 7.5, 7.6 customers. we got half our revenue from our customers in fares and tolls the remainder is dedicated packages, subsidies. the remarkable thing is the decline in ridership is orders of magnitude worse than the great depression give you one example the decline in subways from september 1929, the month before the crash, the 1933 which is the low point on subway ridership was a 13% decline. in the worst days of the pandemic in new york city subway rider ship was down 95% and on monday subway ridership was 29% normal pre-pandemic weekday ridership. subway and bus rider ship, we are carrying 2.9 million passengers that revenue decline has had a

terrible impact on our revenue same thing on the dedicated package. >> what are you hearing from washington in terms of what kind of federal help you may or may not be able to get right now >> look, i think the likelihood is that there will be no covid-19 relief bill this year for mass transit or states and cities that's certainly the way it appears. obviously the election of president-elect biden and his administration gives us great hope, however, the senate republican leadership in washington has been holding up funding for states and cities public transit agencies, including the mta. the effects on the new york economy from a transportation point of view, environmental point of view, job point of view, social equity point of view will be devastating if we don't get $14 billion of

funding. >> let me ask you a question. >> sure. >> this is the hard one. i very much appreciate the economic benefits of helping a public transportation system and what kind of economic growth that can come from it. >> right. >> there is a view from those especially not in the state of new york, even those in the state of new york, that will tell you that the mta, not necessarily under your watch, but for many decades has been terribly mismanaged. the amount of money that's misspent, notoriously so, so there are going to be senators and congress people from around the country that are going to say why are we helping these people who have so mismanaged their system this degree. >> look, i think that's a legacy of the past. i will tell you that over the last several years we've taken $2.8 billion of expense out of the mta. in 2021 we will take an additional billion dollars out of the mta's costs

from a construction point of view, which has also been a target of criticism over the years and decades, we are now delivering projects under leadership we're delivering projects on time and on budget that was true with respect to the l train tunnel that finished early. third track is underway on the long island railroad that project will come in on time and on budget there's an entirely new management team from top and bottom and new approach under governor cuomo's leadership. >> pat, we very much appreciate you joining us this morning. wish you lots of luck on behalf of new yorkers and frankly the country. we wish you a happy thanksgiving >> we're going to need luck and $12 million from the federal government happy thanksgiving. >> we'll work on both. thanks brian? >> thank you. >> i think the biggest municipal bond issuer, 50 billion in debt. bond market story.

you have three critical data economic releases today. you thought you were going to sleep before thanksgiving? you can't. initial jobless claims, durable goods, real gdp. "squawk" back right after this

our second look at third quarter gdp is coming up, but maybe most important initial jobless claims moved higher 778,000 is the current week. last week 742,000 but that may still be revised on continuing claims, a bit of a different story. 6,071,000. which means we're getting ever

closer to that 6 million mark. last week we're at 6,327,000 so we made someprogress there dropping nearly 3,000. now if you look at wholesale inventories, preliminary number, up .9. we need inventories. that's going to help the holiday demand coming up potentially if we look at gdp, it was 33.1 last time. it still isn't out on the wires yet, but we are expecting a number to be somewhat in the camp of unchanged. maybe the demand side and consumptions more important. there it is right on cue 33.1 no change there on our second look i see some of the other numbers starting to trickle in here. durable good orders up 1.3%. that is almost double the expectations, and if we look at what i consider one of the more important subindices, a proxy for capital spending, business spending, up .7 which is a bit

richer than we were expecting. sequentially it follows 1% do remember on the durable numbers, these are preliminary numbers. they most likely will be changed. durable goods a big puzzle we only have a limited number of pieces becky, back to you. >> rick, stay right there. we've got more to talk about with this. let's bring in a couple of other guests we're joined by allison schrager and jim paulsen who's chooes investment officer for the leuthold group steve liesman, your thoughts what's the most important? >> the claims number is terrible it's going the wrong way it remained elevated it's coming down, 778,000 makes me nervousthat we're seeing another round of weakness in the jobless market the continuing claims coming down i believe is offset by the idea that you're having people losing their benefits and rolling over into this pandemic

employment emergency unemployment compensation so that seems to be on the rise i was just looking, that was up by it looks like 132,000 in the week of november 7th so that's a problem. switch to the other side, i've been quite surprised at the resilience on the business side. the idea that we have a strong non-defense aircraft cabinet goods order. non-defense aircraft doing up .7% or .07% still pretty good. what i was able to see on the manufacturing on the durable side is a lot is going on in the computer space the stay at home products that are being manufactured seem to be propelling this economy right now and we're ready for a shift, becky, but i think there's some tough times ahead before the vaccine starts to propel this economy. >> yeah. probably not a surprise given some of the shutdowns that we've seen, some of the additional measures that states and local

governments are taking to try and combat what's happening with the pandemic, but, jim, what do you think about that we have been waiting for these signs and maybe we are starting to get a few signs that we're going to see things that get a lot worse before they get better >> i think we're seeing, you know, like steve says, a little bit of evidence of that. initial claim numbers in particular i think what encourages me about the job market is when i look at total continuing claims, becky, which to me is the best measure what might happen for the jobs report coming up here in early december, because it includes not only new layoffs but also new hirings, and when i look at those numbers not just for the continuing claims but also for the pandemic-related claims in total, that number's been coming down -- continuing to come down here all month i think it would suggest to me that we're going to have another

pretty healthy december jobs number so i think these claims can waffle around a little bit, but i look at those numbers, they're pretty good. we had two tremendously good markets. >> hey, jim -- >> ism numbers both in services and manufacturing. yes, steve >> not this time, jim. you were right that they haven't -- the total claims numbers have been coming down, but the latest data through november 7th, let me just do the calculation here it is up 135,000 total claims. you were right the total claims numbers, the 20 million range have been coming down. this week is the first one going back a long way here i've got to go back to august to find a week it didn't come down. it went up this time, total claims in the economy. >> i agree, steve. i agree. but i think the trend for this month, it's going to go into that payroll number on early december is going to be

positive that's my point. and it's one week. and if i put that together with the fact that consumer comfort index went up to pandemic highs just last week and the market ism's really strong, we've got housing numbers for the month really strong, i think when i look at aggregate i still see a fair amount of momentum here >> hey, allison. i think longer term we are looking at some good news and the market has seen that that's why we're sitting at these new highs. i guess my question is short term what kind of damage is done and what the government could or should be doing right now to prevent some of that long-term damage from taking place just about every politician agrees that we need to get ppp, the payroll protection plan back up and running and doing something. how could we go about doing that what should we be doing right now? >> i think it's obvious we need stimulus as soon as possible i think what we're seeing from the numbers is how divided the economy is if you are a corporation, you can look to the future, the

future looks bright. we have six months to get through. think back to how we were talking in the spring where we were so naive, we're going to put the economy to sleep for a couple of months and grow like crazy, that turned out not to be true that might be true now we have devastation in front of us but some relief in sight. the data shows how divided the economy is the jobs numbers worse than they look in most years you usually have this big boost in jobs and people are doing extra work around the holidays, retail, all of this stuff. those jobs are so not going to be there this year >> jim, again, from the market's perspective. the markets tend to be forward looking. does it tend to have the markets sitting at new highs with the dow at 30,000. the s&p 500 set a new high, russell set a new high dow jones transports set a new high yesterday does that make sense to you? do you think we see more growth

from here? >> well, i think it certainly does long term -- longer term. you know, with the lagged impact of stimulus, becky, starting to hit the economy. probably getting more stimulus in the first quarter of next year the fact that we have a 15% savings rate still in the economy, which is almost record highs against virtually no inventories. i think we're going to have a huge year of growth next year, probably 5 to 6% in real gdp terms which is going to be if that's accurate, it's going to be the fastest year of growth in 35 years in this country so if you take it in that context, you can see why the market is doing what it's doing. even in the short term, becky, the financial markets are not screaming a loss of economic momentum here. we've not only got the stock markets at a new high, we have those most sensitive to the economy, small cap stocks, cyclical stocks going to new

highs leading this market. if you go to the commodity markets, raw industrial commodity prices have soared to new highs overall. go to the bond market. yields have backed up and held most of that and the credit spreads have gone to new lows. the entire financial markets are talking or sending a message of accelerating growth, not decelerating growth overall. the earnings estimate, one year forward on s&p has gone up about 8% since the end of october. so i think the markets themselves are sending the message in combination that covid is not likely to slow this economy that much. >> jim paulsen, allison schrager, want to thank you both for your time this morning >> thank you. we do have some sad news to share this morning

economist and freak went cnbc guest ed lazear has died at age 72 he also, of course, headed the council of economic advisers during george w. bush's second term there was a statement after his death by the former president that reads in part, the renowned economist and respected stanford professor had a brilliant mind and a joy full spirit. as chairman of the council of economic advisers, eddie was a trusted confident who helped guide us he was a good friend of the show lazear died from pancreatic cancer he was a good friend to all of us on the show shocked to hear this news today. >> i knowyou both knew him well

you can talk about the personnel of economic developments that he brought forth that helped companies manage people as a resource we can talk about all of the economic issues he worked on and improved on but there's one thing that just jumps out. the reason i love to have him on every first friday for employment, he was just a genuinely nice person. at a time where people aren't always nice, disagreement isn't always a process to deal with and a classy sort of way, but ed knew how to do that. ed could talk whether something was good or bad for the economy without bringing in all the other baggage that sometimes now comes into conversations and for that and his great intellect, being able to just zero in on issues on every labor report he will be sorrily missed he will be sorrily missed in my heart because he was just a great guy. >> i want to echo those statements, rick first of all, ed -- the dynamics

of the job market were at the forefront of economics during and after the economic crisis and understanding what's going on i had an opportunity to spend a lot of time on the phone with ed thinking about his work. you could run ideas by him at all times. he was endlessly patient, endlessly brilliant and always optimistic eddie cared that people understood what he thought and what others thought and that the ideas were out there in the right way. it was that care and concern that always moved me and his unbelievable patience in explaining his thoughts and giving people different ideas and insights he's going to be sorrily missed and that kind of public servant in academia and public office is the kind of thing we could use a lot more of. becky? >> yeah. shining example and a kind person who was incredibly generous with his time rick and steve, thank you. once again, ed lazear gone at the age of 72.

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning the biggest benefits scandal in california history has been revealed, and it puts millions of dollars in pandemic-related unemployment in the wrong hands.

aditi roy joins us now with more on that story. good morning >> good morning, andrew. this is a jaw dropping story state law enforcement officials say this could be the largest fraud investment story in california history they sent a letter asking for resources in their investigation. it all began when the u.s. labor department compared the names of people receiving pandemic unemployment benefits in california against a list of incarcerated inmates in the state. officials say the volume of fraud they uncovered was just staggering and that it involves rapists, child molesters and human traffickers. tens of thousands of inmates including more than 100 death row prisoners allegedly scammed the state out of hundreds of millions of dollars. one name on the list, scot peterson who was accused of killing his pregnant wife lacey in 2004. they say some of the benefits were sent through debit cards to

the prisons. they eventually landed in the inmates accounts some were sent out of state. governor newsom said in a statement that he's directing the office of emergency services to set up a task force to help in the investigation. so can we unbelievable story, let's talk about how it started in the first place, how it could be so far reaching, it sounds like with so many names involved, there had to be a mastermind or somebody doing this and putting it all together, no? >> yeah, that's what they're trying to -- that is one of the questions that remains to be seen we know as you mentioned, it is far reaching we're not just talking about -- we're talking about death row inmates, talking about county prisons, local jails, it does seem like there is a concerted effort, we're told there was chatter that was overheard in the jails that ended up tipping off prosecutors and

investigators to doing that matching system in the first place. >> unbelievable story. i'm sure more to come out of california there just truly just tough for taxpayers to handle that one aditi roy, thank you very much. on deck, it is not all billionaire hedge funders. how the small retail investor is back and helping to power stocks to new highs but is this it the short-term top or more gains ahead? icarnddiscuss and debate stk ou

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welcome back you might have heard about this, the dow is above 30,000, but it is not just the big players that are inside there small caps also hitting new highs. the s&p 500 a new high as well and listen to this, 135 of the s&p 500 are up more than 20% just this month. 35 of those up more than 40% all in just 17 trading days. all right, a lot of numbers. let's dig into that they all might mean, j.j. kitihan

when i say those kind of numbers, 17 days, 35 stocks, 40%, that smells like euphoria and to be honest, makes me a little bit nervous what about you >> so good to see you as always on this morning of thanksgiving eve. i do not think that you should be nervous by any means at this point in time. we have a very, very accommodative policy we're getting certainty back into the markets, which is what they want, what they need. we're seeing vaccines, potentially coming on board. we're seeing potential treatments that are coming on board. and we're seeing companies doing what they're supposed to do during this time you're seeing them cut the fat, which is what you want to see, and you're seeing some companies that obviously are cash heavy reinvesting in their businesses. you saw this morning, the ability of square to take on a tax business during a time when

the stock market is skyrocketing and how do we grow it is an inconsiderabkrbl incree don't run out and spend all of your money on stocks right now you need to have a balanced portfolio, be thoughtful about what you're doing in the markets right now, and you're going to potentially see some volatility around a myriad of things, but the long-term horizon for u.s. markets now, i think, is a very positive one >> okay, very positive we have thanksgiving tomorrow, 2020, a hell of a year you have the retail investor back they're complaining the retail investor is gone now we're complaining the retail investor is back how much have you seen interest rise in this market and hello, by the way >> hey, sully, yeah, first of all, happy thanksgiving to you and everybody at "squawk box." you're right two years ago we were saying

wh when will people get involved in the market and this week we're seeing above normal trading this is normally a week where we start to see volumes sort of taper off. but the fact is so many people are still working from home, that people are involved with -- involved with the market, you've seen some of the favorites of the retail investor, you know, the apples of the world and the financials and tesla being some of the leaders with this now, do i think it is all roses and we're all going to start with our christmas presents today? of course not. and, in fact, you know, as courtney pointed out rightly, we just got some certainty around the election, around some cabinet members, that's going to -- that really helped the confidence in the market, i think one thing we still have to say is going to continue to add volatility is going to be the logistics around getting a vaccine out to people, that is the one thing that we have this

euphoria to start, it is great, but we have to say how are people going to get it, who is going to get it when and i think that process may add more volatility to the market overall and it is interesting last night, if you look at where the vix closed, it started to butt up against those march lows right before we had this big sell-off and this morning up a little bit, something to keep our eyes on also. >> also distributed safely i asked scott earlier what do we do to prevent it from getting stolen they're putting security measures we're putting -- >> i said the same thing i said the same thing. >> i know. he said you don't want any vaccines to fall off a truck, right? black market for that. you're not a tesla analyst, i get it let's use tesla as an example. i looked at nio, 44 times enterprise value to sale just one metric. i use other metrics but they

don't make money i'm not picking on those companies. do valuations matter in certain segments they mattered in 2001, didn't in 1999, do you worry that parts of tech have gotten way too hot >> well, you know, you asked a lot in there, sully. and so valuations absolutely do matter to a certain extent but this market and over the past couple of years as a lot of things have been running heavily on emotion i'm not saying that's the case in tech. i want to be very, very clear. we are in the midst of what i would like to call a digital transformation if we're being honest our world has now integrated tech the same way that we do toothpaste and soap. i'll use that as an example for you there. we're in the midst of a digital transformation and that will continue to propel the growth in this market. that doesn't mean that value stocks aren't going to do well, doesn't mean that banks aren't

going to do well because you look at what a jpmorgan has done in the tech space, they're embracing it the companies that embrace tech are going to do well as we move forward. >> yeah. courtney, j.j., real pleasure becky, toothpaste and soap, hopefully two things nobody is giving up on in 2020 >> grateful for a lot. friends, family and colleagues like you guys. happy thanksgiving, everybody. join us on friday. right now, time for "squawk on the street." >> you bet >> good wednesday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl keent nita with daveaqh david aber, jim cramer is off. last session before the holiday, a lot of data, gdp, durables and more on the way. road map begins with the record rally.