cases. and democratic leefrd leads cutting the price tag for their stimulus proposal. andtesla shares are surgin after goldman sachs said electric car adoptions, that's nice, is happening faster than expected it is thursday, december 3, 2020 "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box." i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. after the s&p got another record yesterday, you will see that this morning there is a little bit of a give back, s&p down by about 2 points, dow by about 40. and the nasdaq is up by about 20

points the s&p setting a new record, the nasdaq coming just off of a new record but those are not the only records out there. we'll give you an update on some covid numbers. but before we do that, let's look at the treasury market. right now it looks like the ten year is yielding 0.931%. so again, that elevated level at least from what we've seen recently andrew >> and we have several grim metrics to show you, the pandemic hitting new levels right here in the united states. more than 2700 people died from the virus yesterday in the u.s. and more than 204,000 new cases were reported. both are single day records. according to the covid tracking project, more than 100,000 people in the united states are currently hospitalized with covid-19 hospitalizations have been setting new records almost daily since november 10th. and health experts are bracing for a possible surge in travel related cases following thanksgiving and the cdc is urging people to cancel december

travel plans so good news on this potential vaccine, but as i think we knew, post-thanksgiving would be hard and here we are. >> also good news maybe on the stimulus go ahead, becky. >> just yesterday the cdc said that we could be facings worst public health crisis that we've seen in this country ever in the next few months as the numbers rack up. hopefully we get to the other side of this quickly, hopefully the vaccine is approved quickly, but it could be a tough time between now and then >> it could be we'll see. we should hear near term about a vaccine approval, i would think. >> hope so next week. >> but the presser from the uk works both ways. it is like okay, they did it, we should take take quick look at this but then it is like well, we won't be pressured because we

have different guidelines. like the eu said but on stimulus talk, this is weird. suddenly $900 billion. hey, suddenly that is looking good to the democrats. i don't know house speaker nancy pelosi and chuck schumer backing a $908 billion stimulus plan as a basis for relief talks and that is obviously much smaller than the $2.2 trillion they previously demanded more than $500 billion that mitch mcconnell though is pushing. so the goalposts get moved by both sides apparently because there was a deal on the table for on well over that at one point, up near, $1.5 trillion or 1.6 i think. and that didn't go but maybe this time. maybe this is the time to do it. less of a charged atmosphere among most people anyway

>> you know, the big issue is not going to be just the price tag, the dollar figure that is riding on this, it will be the details. because if you look at the details that each side has put forth, there are some pretty sticky subject matters i think the two biggest issues are probably money for state and local municipalities that the democrats are insisting on and mcconnell and other republicans have said that they want to make sure that there is liability protection for businesses those two issues i think any bill is going to have to have either both of those issues in it or neither of those issues in it if you really want to talk about a skinny bill that is only things that are bipartisan, you will have to get to a bill that really only is bipartisan. because even if you look at that $500 billion mitch mcconnell plan, the skinny plan, it has stuff crammed in there for schools and special interests that are not related to the pandemic so if you are talking about a skinny bill that is just helping the people most in need, you can't put other special projects in that. and that is the tricky thing

because both sides have crammed their own special projects in any bill that they have put forward. if you really want to do a bipartisan skinny deal, do something that doesn't have any of that junk crammed into it >> that would be a first though. >> yeah. that's why we're not very likely to see a deal anytime soon in doorpt necorporate news, a gf states reportedly plan to file a lawsuit against facebook next week new york is leading the group accusing it of antitrust violations reuters says more than 40 states plans to sign on to the lawsuit. so it means for all of the social media companies, you are now going to be dealing with 40 states' attorney geners generals good luck with that. >> that is right and meantime the national labor relations board filing a complaint against google accusing of it violating labor laws

case documents accuse gloogle of illegally spying on employees and blocking them from filing work grievances using its own software google says that they will continue to provide information to the nlrb to terminate or discipline employees and tesla is again a to being to watch we haven't missed a day i don't think for talking about it goldman sachs upgraded the stock there buy to neutral and raised its price target to $780, durnltsly t currently the highest on wall street the shift toward the adoption of battery electric vehicles is accelerating and will happen faster than a previous view. and you wonder if elon musk had never been born where we'd be on the adoption of electric vehicles we'll all be sitting there

going, i don't know, gm's got a volt have you ever seen -- no, never seen one you seen one no >> i don't think that gm would have a volt if it weren't for elon musk. >> right that's probably true too anyway, we'd still have that one from the simpsons where they are barely moving, looks like a golf cart only going a little slower. >> joe, when you said the adoption of electric vehicles -- >> because i'm adopted and i think it is nice >> i know, but i thought it was some new phraseology for buying a used electric vehicle. >> no, they are adopting -- i think adoptions are nice you know, it was a long time ago, but the orphanage -- the food, terrible i'm still definitely afraid of nuns, penguins either one just brings back bad, bad

memories but that's enough about me coming up, two key dates -- i love nuns. i'm kidding. we're watching the vaccine front december 10 and december 17, those are when the fda meets to consider pfizer and moderna's vaccines we'll talk phrma stocks and your portfolio all coming up next it's down to the wire,

the team's been working around the clock. we've had to rethink our whole approach. we're going to give togetherness. logistically, it's been a nightmare. i'm not sure it's going to work. it'll work. i didn't know you were listening.

three former presidents are volunteering to get their covid vaccines on cameras. barack obama, george w. bush, and bill clinton all say they want to help promote public confidence in the vaccine's safety haven't heard from the vice president-elect yet. since the market closed on march 11, the s&p is up 34%. so is pfizer but other big phrma covid developers like j and j, astrazeneca and merck are up less and pfizer compared to moderna is much less moderna has soared a multiple of times. here to talk about the phrma

sector, analyst at cfra. vaccines have never been a big mean maker it is a consistent business. we've seen companies involved in the past and that is initially what i think. if you just try to connect the dots to bottom line results some day versus vaccines, and you use actual price to earnings multiples and all the things we use, it is tough to get that excited except maybe about moderna that has a new platform for a lot of different medicines. is that what is happening? >> thanks for having me. so i think that there are several factors that kind of came into play explaining why these stocks didn't move as much as expected. we think that moderna is a pure mrna play and the main catalyst was the mrna based vaccine so it was clear to understand and invest compared to the other

ones for pfizer, we think thatthey are seeing a good run in the stock, but it took a while and when you look at companies like johnson & johnson, merck and pfizer, those are big phrma companies that are more complex to evaluate. and there are a lot of different factors coming into play for example, in johnson and johnson's cases, other factors are impacts valuations such as stock related loss feuds and now that we're over the elections, there is also the high scrutiny about lower drug prices so all these also impact essentially the valuation of these big pharmaceutical companies. so after we've seen the initial efficacy data and we see more movements positively in these stocks i think >> there is not going to be a lot of pricing flexibility, is there, not only from a public opinion perspective, but you

will have, you know, a huge group, the u.s. government, a huge body that will be negotiating prices for all these things i don't see how -- not that this is about money for any of these companies because it is not just about money. but i don't see how it becomes a big pay day based just on the covid-19 vaccine >> that's a good point we also looked at how the profitability was going to come into play for these companies. and johnson & johnson and astrazeneca up front saying that it was a nonprofit effort. we think this might be the case in the big names, bullpen we don't know a lot of things about the covid-19 virus, whether you will need repeat vaccinations, whether similar to the flu vaccine, you will need to have it every year. so there might be good profitability opportunities going forward, but we don't know enough yet and we're thinking these companies might be looking into those opportunities for the

future >> so sel, bashing big phrma is one of the -- it is hea heartwarming, it is one of the big bipartisan issues in d.c i don't know which party actually has talked more are about it is a biden presidency more likely or less likely than if trump had been reelected to exert prices on drug prices? >> we degree that there agree t bipartisan support on lowering drug prices. and a lot of research published recently indicated that definitely a lot of -- there is a strong and growing sentiment publicly in the u.s. that drug prices are high compared to other developed nations. so we thought that either the democrat or republican win would address the situation. and we think biden has a strong stance about the issue and we

think -- we'd expect something to be done in the next four years of lowering drug prices. >> i mean, we know why drug prices are higher here do you think that it is a good idea, do you think -- is this where we should be focusing our cost containment efforts if you look at all of health care, are pharmaceutical prices and the price rises there, is that the main bugaboo for trying to hold down costs >> there is really a fine line there. i mean, one key point there is that to make sure that it is not going to hurt innovation and it won't drive away innovation abroad and so this will definitely be a key element to consider going forward. >> right i like blaming the middle man. easiest thing to do.

i mean, there are some benefits from the so-called middle man as well, but easy to blame them and you kind of see them like gouging, raising -- give it to me, i'll sell to you for this. but there are reasons that we have that system so i don't know. we should have a reason and nonemotional sort of solution. otherwise as you said, we'll hurt innovation, because it can be the best deal in town if you can treat alzheimer's, if you can treat long term chronic diabetes, if you can treat any of these things with a pill, it is so much cheaper than the hospital so i don't know, it is a tough one, don't you think can you help them out? >> i agree, i mean i think innovation is definitely very important for phrma. especially when we look at the covid-19 vaccine and treatments out there. the innovation we saw there has been fascinating

and there were a lot of r&d dedicated for these efforts like not seen in any other country in the world. so important to keep that going forward. >> sel hardy, we'll see what happens with some of these other vaccine makers they certainly are -- moderna is the envy of all of them. thanks andrew a lot more coming up on "squawk box" this morning. uncle sam, you know what uncle sam wants? wants you to report your bitcoin gains. everything you need to know about cashing in your cryptocurrency, we'll break it down for you and check this out, nbc airing the 88th rockefeller christmas tree lighting ceremony last night. those who want to see the tree though, you have to make a reservation and observe pandemic safety protocols and time limits look at that beautiful tree.

i know people saw the pictures when it first came in, but as savannah guthrie said on twitter, a little bit of lighting and some extensions go a long way and you can see right there on the tree right now i felt like... ...i was just fighting an uphill battle in my career. so when i heard about the applied digital skills courses, i'm thinking i can become more marketable. you don't need to be a computer expert to be great at this. these are skills lots of people can learn. i feel hopeful about the future now. ♪

welcome back if you are planning on trying to cash in some of your bitcoin and try to pocket the gains, guess what, be prepared for a potential tax hit. if you have owned or used bitcoin, you may own taxes no matter how you acquired or used

it sharon epperson is here now with more on what you need to know. sharon >> hi, andrew. if you bought or sold bitcoin or any crypto occurrence cicurrencs wants to know about it it now asks this right on the first page of your 1040 in-tax return at anytime during 2020, did you receive, sell, send, exchange or otherwise acquire any financial interest in virtual currency and you have to answer yes or no now, you need to check yes if you were involved in any transaction with a cryptocurrency including selling it, receiving it, transferring it for free, exchanging it for goods or services, or other property including another virtual currency and like stocks, any gain or loss from the sale or exchange of a cryptocurrency is taxed as a capital gain or loss >> taxpayers need to know three pieces of information. its basis in the cryptocurrency,

the holding period, and the fair market value at the time of the transaction. >> so it is very important to keep good records of your transactions now, you will find out a lot more about bitcoin and your taxes at cnbc.com/smart tax planning andrew >> so a couple questions consequences if you don't check the right box on your tax return, either you are dodging it purposely or maybe you really just don't know. >> well, you need to know. you need to make sure that you understand how it works and working with with a tax professional is key here because if you have made a transaction and you do not check that yes box, the tax experts that we've spoken to say that you could be accused of tax evasion by the irs, there could be criminal consequences so this is a very serious consideration that you have to make it is right at the top of the 1040 form, you can't miss the he question, but you must answer it truthfully because there could

be significant consequences if you don't. >> and are places like coin base and other institutions, are they reporting your gains and losses as well to match >> i'm so glad you asked that. because like a brokerage firm will report, but this does not happen at many of the exchanges and cryptocurrency usually so it is very important for you to deep good records on your own and to make sure that you understand how to deep those records. having a cpa tax professional who has worked with cryptocurrencies, has worked with taxpayers who are dealing with this is very important. so ask that question as you pick the right professional to work with >> sharon, i get the idea of having to report if you bought or sold cryptocurrency, but if you have used it for any transaction could get really complicated especially as more and more vendors are accepting it as a form of payment. let's say you rented an airbnb on something using it, let's say

you bought a cup of coffee somewhere, you have to report every one of those transactions? that could be incredibly complicated. >> it says any but of course it is difficult to keep all of those records and all of those documents the issue is that people weren't reporting anything and i think the irs has been looking to crack down on this looking at the millions of people who own bitcoin right now, own cryptocurrency and how just several hundred some years over the past few years have been reporting every year. so they are missing out on a lot of people and they just want to make sure i think that they are getting the accurate numbers of who owns bitcoin, who is using it and how they are reporting it >> sharon, just thinking about all the ramifications of this. early adopters, they may be smart enough to have their own also wallet where they don't use a coin base and part of the appeal i think is that it is so anonymous to some people and we've seen historically what it has been used for

so it has sort of the impression that it gives. but i would think anybody that buys it on coin base or -- coin base is not going to be able to say, oh, no, we're not going to provide anything coin base is going to have to generate -- i don't know if you answered that. do they generate like something to the irs right now about the people that they are dealing with or will they >> right now there is not a standard form like the 1099 form there is not a standard form for cryptocurrency so you may have some institutions have a form or paperwork that they deal with the irs, but there is no standard 1099 like you get from a brokerage firm from what tax experts are telling me >> the market cap now is -- that has to be near term for the big exchanges i would think. like the wild wild west only lasted for so long, right?

>> exactly and again, that is evident by the fact thatit is not on a schedule anymore, it is not tucked away somewhere in tax documents where you have to report this, it is right at the top on the first page of the 1040 so you are right, things are definitely changing. >> all right sharon, thank you. appreciate that. a lot of people say that was why it was invented. we'll see when the rubber meets the road whether -- it will be interesting to watch better hire more irs agents i think. becky. >> it will be incredibly complicated to track it down, but watch out. and when we come back, market fomo. why fear of missing out may be driving the gains in stocks and what you can do about it right now though as we head to a break, take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and los losers

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♪ good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box. you're looking at a live picture of the rockefeller center christmas tree which is now lit every morning just for us, they even put up a "squawk box" sign for us honestly though, last night was the tree lighting and it was fantastic. if you missed it being you it check it out every day, the lights turn on at 6:00 a.m. just for us let's check out the u.s. equity futures. you will see right now dow is indicated down by about 22 points after closing up yesterday. s&p indicated down just slightly, but it closed at a record level yesterday the nasdaq was down by about 5 or 6 points just off of a record close. it is indicated up by about 25

points this morning. our next guest says there is serious fomo, fear of missing out, that is going on in the market right now joining us with that is amy wu si silverman at rbc who is feel like they are missing out? i feel like i've missed out o. a lot of things this year, but not necessarily the markets. >> certainly i feel like in general everyone feels like they are missing out. but feskly with regards to the markets, it is actually more the institutional side rather than the retail side who feels like they are missing out if you look at cfct positioning data since the beginning of the pandemic, this group of asset managers were the most und underinvested. so essentially they missed this big wave that we saw in growth momentum in tech and now after a month like november, they are seriously considering how to position for the potential recovery as it relates to value and cyclicals

and the like so that group delicately putting their toe in the water and when that wave comes, it will be fairly large >> i mean i guess that explains why we keep seeing the stock market hit new highs even though we're seeing new records on every kind of bad metric when it comes to covid from hospitalizations to death and new cases found every day. this group, the institutional investor, are they what you would traditionally consider the smart money or are they traditionally counterintuitive to where the rest of the market is >> yeah, you know, generally when pundits say smart money versus dumb money, it is usually the institutional professionals that would be the smart money. and what has been interesting is in some way, we've seen the trends during this pandemic actually led by retail, which you traditionally don't see. and even one wrinkle to that, because i knfocus on options, we

have seen just an extraordinary amount of activity specifically in options just to give you two stats, usually in november you see kind of daily 13 million to 15 million in call option value that is from last year this year we saw 35 million. and a lot of that is again driven by retail kind of the same cohort that drove the tech exuberance you saw through call option activity, you are seeing that through november as we got positive vaccine news. and you know, i'd be very interested to see if that trend continues. it certainly has been driving the market so far. >> amy, what happens on the rare occasions when retail leads the way and institutional investors, institutional money follows? what is the fallout? >> so, you know, there are a couple things that have happened that if you don't look at derivatives closely, it is kind of under the hood. but i would characterize it as

someone who has been in the market purely in derivatives for 20 years that some of the relationship breakdowns that we've seen are truly historic. so starting in the pandemic, and even now, we're seeing imbalances between the call option activity and the put option activity that is just not normal it is not sustainable. and yet we continue to see it. and one thing that happens is this can perpetuate technical cycles in the market on both sides. so to be more specific about this, when we saw a tech rally in august, it rallied even more -- crm as an example. it had a 7% implied move on the earnings date and ended up moving up 26%. that is because of options activity and we're also continuing to see that now the number of names like tesla, but also the big tech names and now the cyclical names

so one technical piece of jar n jargon, we look at how imbalanced call option bulg lish activity is versus bearish activity when it starts to get imbalanced, it means that we use see feedback loops kind of continuing on upon themselves almost in a self-fulfilling prophecy and that is related to something called gamma in options, but essentially is a technical driver that exacerbates up moves even more and down moves even more and right now we're seeing it exacerbate up moves even more. >> so you mentioned tesla. i don't know if what you were describing is specific to tesla shares as well but elon musk did say to his employees very recently that they have to control costs because while the market is giving them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the future profitability and future growth of the company, the market could change its mind at any point and he said and then

we'd get squished like a souffle with a sledgehammer. is he right to be cautious at this point >> if you look just at the options market, then no. but i'll tell you, so when we run our data, we have like 2,000 stocks and they are all run together and then we have tesla by itself because it is such a deviation in terms of every single statistic that you actually have to put it in its own bucket. i'm not even joking about that it is such a cult company in terms of, you know, who trades its options. there is a heavy retail com pea nents component to that. but i talk to a lot of snufof institutional investors about the s&p inclusion, what they think will happen to the stock post-the inclusion historically most stocks tend to

selloff and invest information is like with tesla, i don't know it is its own animal and it usually continues to break down further rather than normal i normalize. so it is tough >> amy, thank you. that is really interesting we'll talk to you again soon >> thank, becky. coming up, the latest news in the spac world. remember we used to talk about spam a lot, not spac so much spac sounds like something you'd see on like local cable news where the guy comes out and he is like squirting it on molding and -- anywhere you need it, you can put some spac. and if you order today, you get an extra tube just for ordering today. give the code that you see there. but this time, it is making its founder a billionaire at just 5

years orde5 -- 25 years old and reminder, you can watch or listen to us live of anytime on the cnbc app firs

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. so with every turn, we'll keep building a world that works.

. welcome back take a look the u.s. equity futures. we have the dow looking like it would open off about 24 points, s&p 500 we'll call it down half a point. but the nasdaq looking up about 24 points higher a couple headlines to bring you. amazon is now in exclusive talks to purchase podcast wondery. that is according to the "wall street journal." the report saying that the talks value wondery at over $300 million. it is the last really large independent podcaster on the market other startups have been bought by larger players like spotify and others the founder of wondery has gotten in a bunch of legal trouble though, which is also creating an opportunity for that sale to take place right now joe.

and shares of snowflake are under pressure reported a loss of $1.01 a share in its first report as a public company. revenue grew 119% year over year snowflake provides a cloud based alternative to data warehouses i guess it was founded before that name took on sort of that, i don't know, i can't say it without sort of laughing anyway, shares of cybersecurity company crowdstrike, that is a good one, are soaring. companies earnings of 8 cents a share beat revenues and revenue also beat. crowdstrike's revenue from subscriptions jumped 81% in the quarter. and with today's gains, the stock is up 224% for the year. shares of pvh, rising on stronger than expected third quarter results. and the owner reported earnings

adjusted of $1.32 a share, that was above the 24 cent expectation and revenue of more than $2 million, also beat the street take us out, andrew. we have big things coming up got your spac. >> this is big you'll be fascinated by this so when we come back, autonomous transportation company luminar set the to go public today through a spac we'll talk to its founder about the deal that will make him a billionaire at only 25 years old. america's been waiting for.

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box," aluminum -- luminar is making its public debut. lumina will start on trading today, the deal making luminar founder austin russell a billionaire. you can be jealous he's only 25 years old, and joins us first on cnbc austin, congratulations to you it's a thing it's a thing i almost just want to talk to you about how it feels you're a young guy to have that, i know it's only on paper, but even before we talk about the business, just tell me how you're feeling this morning, honestly

>> thank you so much for having me absolutely incredible. i mean, it is, you know, a really really special time for us and, yeah, definitely just super excited about all of the value creation that we have had, and you know, going public has always been far of our long-term road map but to be able to have really just a series of awesome events despite all of the, you know, head winds, 2020 has brought, you know, and really accelerating into the close here has been fantastic, so, yeah, i couldn't be better. >> tell me this, though, austin, what would your 18-year-old self be thinking right now? it's only seven years ago. >> you know, there's some part of it that's totally surreal and then there's another part of it that just totally makes sense, and i think it's kind of hard to explain the dichotomy of it, but at the same time, you know, this is always been the goal.

you know, we've set up the business to be a really long-term sustainable business in terms of what we're going after and powering the future of autonomy for all of these different automakers people set their companies up to be acquired loalong the way, but we're all in for the long run. >> well, you're acting super mature and politic about it. i hope you're high fiving somebody when this is over >> high five. >> but let's talk about the business itself, and how you think the market this is a big issue with spacs and businesses like yours that are sort of edge of the envelope in terms of where things are, how should an investor today in your mind fairly think about how to value your company meaning, you know, an investor is going to look at comps, what is this comparable to. what kind of multiples should i put on this. how should i think about this, what do you tell them? >> it's a great question, and

you know, it's always tougher in new types of breakthrough t technologies there isn't any direct correlation with any company that's historically been there i would say in terms of how to think about this, you take a look at this overall multitrillion dollar autoindustry, probably around half a trillion addressable opportunity for us, and clearly autonomous vehicle, software is coming more into prevalence. we have won every opportunity for production deal to be able to get designed in transition this whole industry out of r and d, get it into the real world in production and continue to accelerate, so that's the overall opportunity. you know, i think there's some great comps that have been out there, and actually one of our partners, you know, that we just recently announced mobile eye, you know, in terms of a company we're working with to prvp the light r sensing systems for their av solutions, it's a great

company. it was cool back in '17 they were acquired at a 43 x revenue multiple off the business and you know, we have been building up our book here, we have expanded for a forward looking order book of roughly 1.3 billion estimated business from all the different deals that we have had here. it's been great. >> austin, long-term, how defensible, what kind of mote do you have around this kind of technology patents and the like, at some point does the technology that you're building, does it become commoditized do others figure out how to do it and do it just as well you often have that in sort of consumer products effectively. i don't know if you put yourself as a consumer product but to some degree it becomes one. >> absolutely. a lot of products historically, particularly in the hardware space, but for this, it's dramatically different you have to wonder why the

mobilize or the nvidia's of the world never been commoditized and it comes down to high ip, and there's a host of different reasons. we have pretty much one of the most insane motes probably out of any company at this stage really, we have built out, for example, talk about ip, and everything about the core technology we have pioneered all the different core components and building it entirely from the ground up. we're not using off the shelf parts and commodity parts. this is the point of how we were able tosoever t solve the probl technology, actually more than the other, you know, top five, you know, r and d efforts combined here as part of the overall portfolio, and on top of that, you know, have the world supply, the relevant team, we have locked up the key exclusives and acquired some of the relevant suppliers, the only ones that can do some of these things we're feeling really great. >> austin, we have to run.

we've got a hard break real quick, elon musk said you don't need lidar, what do you think about that >> yeah, i think our 50 commercial partners and the majority of major auto makers we're working with would absolutely disagree, but, you know, when it comes down to it, cameras are great for assisted driving. when it comes to autonomy, you need high performance lidar, and we're the only ones able to do it, get it out of r and d, put it in production, and do so at highway speed. if there's any company out there that's incentivized to have a pure, say, camera only solution, you know, i mean, they actually even supplied the tesla systems for early on for autonomy, going to your question, which is mobileye, and we're working directly with them, so i think that says something. >> austin, we look forward to your progress. hope to see you in person, and wish you lots of luck. >> fantastic, thanks, andrew. >> you bet.

when we come back, we'll talk about what's working in retail we'll get one analyst's ideas of what to shop for this holiday season that's next. and the biggest laggards, splunk is lower after reporting disapointing results "squawk box" will be right back. i'm thinking i can become more marketable. you don't need to be a computer expert to be great at this. these are skills lots of people can learn. i feel hopeful about the future now. ♪

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investors watching and waiting for news on stimulus negotiations and the vaccine approval process we have the latest on what you need to know ahead of the trading day. that's straight ahead. speaking of stimulus, house speaker nancy pelosi and senate minority leader chuck schumer urging senate majority leader mitch mcconnell to use a $908 billion bipartisan stimulus plan as the basis for relief talks. we'll hear from two of the congressmen who helped write the latest relief bill. big retailers are having a big month, what's driving stocks higher we're going to find out as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning, welcome back to "squawk box" right here on

cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin, along with becky quick and joe kernen. take a look at u.s. equity futures right now this morning we'll show you where we stand about 2 1/2 hours before the market opens dow looks like it will open down 15 points. s&p, .01, like to round it to a positive if we could, and the nasdaq looking to open about 25 1/2 points. joe. i'll bet you austin has never heard, he's 25, he's never heard of brewster's millions, i was waiting for you to bring that up, and you have recently seen it. >> it's one of my favorite movies. >> wasn't it $30 million he had 30 days to spend the money. but i thought it was 30 million, something like that. yeah what a movie. >> could do it easily now, you know austin needs to see that, you know, 25 with a billion.

i mean, there's just no way. he needs to get started. we've got some good ideas for him. anyway, here's what's making headline at this hour. start with goldman sachs upgrading. i think we're talking about tesla here, there it is. thanks, matt upgrading the stock to buy from neutral and raise its price target to 780. currently the highest on wall street, the analyst says the shift towards adoption of battery electric vehicles is accelerating it will happen faster than their prior view ups has imposed shipping limits on large retailers including gap and nike, to manage the surge in online orders this holiday season this is one of the lead stories in the "wall street journal" reporting that ups told drivers not to pick up some packages on cyber monday as the pandemic has fueled online shopping stretching the delivery networks to their limits. a ups spokesperson says said th

company will pick up packages, whose demand will exceed capacity once more space becomes available. you knew this was coming, some of the existing ability of these companies being stretched by just the surge during the pandemic and the house as approved a bill that would ban shares from stock exchanges. they continue to deny regulators access to their audits the company would have three years to comply before a trading prohibition takes effect the bill meds to president trump who is expected to sign it becky. >> joe, thanks house speaker nancy pelosi and senate minority leader chuck schumer urging senate majority leader mitch mcconnell to use a $908 billion stimulus plan as the basis for relief talks el ylan mui joins us with more. this is something mcconnell said

forget it, he's not going to use. >> that is true, becky, but there is growing bipartisan support from both sides of the aisle for using that framework as a way to just get back to the bargaining table as you mentioned, pelosi and schumer have gotten behind this plan in a joint statement they said that there is room for improvement but that the need to act is immediate, and we believe with good faith negotiations we could come to an agreement the number two democrat in the house, steny hoyer said lawmakers could strike a deal as soon as this weekend, though he did acknowledge that's pretty optimistic still, a number of prominent republican senators have sounded hopeful as well. senator john thune called it a move in the right direction. john cornyn described it as a major change but mcconnell said those ideas may not hold muster. the only plan that has a green light from the white house is a smaller package that he

circulated earlier this week >> the last several days, the democratic leaders have signaling a willingness to engage in good faith, and a number of senate democrats proposed a different compromise. but at the risk of repeating something we all know, mr. president, making law will require not just the senate's approval but also the signature of the president of the united states >> reporter: mcconnell did say if a deal were to be struck it could pass along some type of government funding bill. back to you. >> is almost seems disingenuous to say it's the president that's been holding things up but it's mitch mcconnell who has been holding things up from the point where the discussion were happening between the democrats and steven mnuchin is that really the case? is it the white house that is pushing back and saying, no, we're not going to do this at that point, or is there still a number of hard core republicans who say now it's the

$500 billion plan we had already passed nothing is going to make its way to the senate floor unless mitch mcconnell says okay, we'll take a vote on it >> yeah, becky, first, i would say that we would agree there's a fair amount of blame to go around on all sides but the sort of parsing of the words that i took from what mcconnell said, this is a plan the white house would support, is this the only plan that the white house would support, and i think that's part of the conversation that ploelo was having with mnuchin, and certainly mnuchin has been briefed on the frame work as well, and gave thoughts and guidance into what might possibly go into it. there are still a ways to go in these negotiations, but this is the first time we have really seen both democrats and sort of republicans break off, and say we're willing to do something else democrats are willing to go below 2 trillion and republicans saying this larger package sounds like a good idea. so what we're hearing is that no one thinks that the frame work

as it is currently put out is going to pass as is. they are planning to put out some sort of legislative checks possibly as soon as next week, but it is a start and it gives them a way to sort of break that log jam, and it gives them permission to start going back to the table with a new set of parameters >> very quickly, is this something that could be passed in time for the government funding law? when does that have to happen, december 11th? >> december 11th but the question is is the government going to be funded on december 11th there are the lot of moving pieces to this we'll see if there's a full spending bill or if they kick the can down the road and pass a short-term stopgap measure again. >> thank you, we'll check with you soon later in this hour, congressman josh gottheimer, and congressman tom reed will join us, cochairs who helped write the most recent

relief plan, a bipartisan group working to find a form of agreement. they'll join us a little bit later this hour. andrew. >> thanks, becky meantime, opec and russia resuming talks to agree on policies in 2021, an effort to tackle weak oil demand take a look at crude you can buy it by the barrel 44. 44.95 is the price tag, and brian sullivan, our oil and energy expert joining us right now with what it all means brian. >> thank you for that, andrew. yeah, listen, this is opec plus meeting. the opec meeting was monday, the opec plus russia and a bunch of other nations like mexico and kazakhstan and others was supposed to be tuesday to ratify the deal that all got delayed they're playing let's make a deal global oil version, shall we if you're behind on peck plaope

and i don't believe they are they cut production by 10 billion barrels a day, and brought on 2 more million barrels a day. the plan currently is to raise output by 1.9 billion barrels per day starting january 1st currently the cut is 7 f.7 it's a de facto production increase however, many opec members do not believe that production increase is possible, with still weak global demand the saudis and some others want to scuttle the current plan, and keep the current cut level going, 7.7 million barrels a day for three more months. january, february, march we're going to meet today with russia to try to hammer that out. okay, why do you care. here you go. three real outcomes and what is likely to happen to oil and oil prices number one, extend the current cuts in other words, come to a deal, russia blesses it, we move on. that's priced in

oil is actually firmed up. oil stocks red hot in november here's what i think is likely to happen this would be the sullivan selection, guys. they're going to extend some of the cuts, okay, but they're going to allow certain producers to either produce a little bit more or they're going to taper it in through january, february and march. kind of complicate the issue, ramp up toward march or you get this, you get no deal. if there is no deal, day walk out, virtually walk out, guys. you're probably going to see oil fall 5 or more bucks per barrel today. oil stocks get whacked and you might have a global price war. two big intrigue so i had sti uae have been pressured internally to produce more or get compensated. russia, which is likely cheating on the current plan because they pretty much always do is coming

in with a little more heat the energy minister, alexander novack was promoted, deputy prime minister of all of russia, so putin's shadow is looming larger over pecopec not sure when we'll get the decision today hopefully we will get a decision today. >> if we do get a decision today, just i got to put my watch on, what time would that happen, and those who are going to play it or try to play it >> meeting starts at 8:00 a.m. our time i mean, listen, if they've got a deal in principle, andrew, it could be fairly quick. if it drags on into the afternoon, remember, they are virtually in vienna, six hours ahead, they probably don't want to be there until midnight as well i'll take a stab, i'm just going to guess 11:22 a.m. eastern time, and i literally just made that up but why not.

>> 11:22. >> it's opec >> okay. >> just going to guess. >> in the over and under, i'll play the over, so you win if it's -- price is right rules, anything under 11:22 is yours, and anything over, because i think these guys are always late that's my view they're always late. >> you'll probably get it andrew, 11:23 in the field, as joe would say in a golf tourney, i'll take it >> good to see you, thanks. >> all right >>. so you're not wearing a watch, sorkin, honestly? are you using that ring to monitor all of your bodily functions at this point? does that tell you when you need to pee is it like flap or something >> no, no, it only tells you what's -- >> you have no watch. >> today i'm not wearing a

watch. i'm not wearing a watch today. i need to, but what can you do >> all right >> i'll give you my mood a little bit later my readiness, i'm 88 that's like a b plus today it says my readiness is 88 so i'm feeling okay. >> is that like a harvard b plus or a real b plus coming up, a retail detail, look at what's working in the states, some of the -- they wrote that in there, i hate saying that. we'll look at that sector and some of the names may surprise you. all eyes are on that maybe not. before we head to break, a check on the futures at this hour. we are slightly negative, at least on the dow and s&p, but the nasdaq is up 29 points, "squawk box" will rhtac beig bk. hey, dad! hey, son! no dad, it's a video call.

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♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year with the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you ♪ true, the death, though, of the department has been greatly

exaggerated. shares of nordstrom more than doubling over the past month, and stocks like kohl's, macy's, gaining more than 80%, even in the face of the raging pandemic. joining us now for a look at what is working is oliver chen, cowen senior retail analyst and managing director, and we've learned over the years, oliver, that those gains when they come after a big downdraft, you need 100% to get back to where you were so may be surprising that there has been a rebound, but it's a really tough -- it's a tough sell right now, brick and mortar obviously it's not going away, but you need to be multichannelled, don't you >> that's definitely true. happy holidays, thanks for having me. store traffic has been down 50%. inventories are under good control and the shopper is there. the shopper is there we're seeing strength at the high end, and also strength at value retailers like walmart and

others so consumer sentiment, unemployment, those are all things we're watching as well. >> it's weird, oliver, so if the digital sales and the online sales have been stratospherically better than we thought and the regular traffic you're talking about is better than we thought, can we make that leap that overall consumers have just been better off or are spending more than we predicted during this very difficult time? >> i think it's definitely a time to be selective our favorite idea is walmart, target and costco, the durability, the diversification of the broad lines portfolio, and curbside pickup. curbside pickup is a huge and important innovation as well as online grocery the mall is still a tough place. it's better than feared. those retailers that survived are taking share from those who close, so that's an opportunity. apparel is a tough category.

as many of us don't need as much or we have realized we don't need as much with pants and other items, so it's all about printers at home, less so pants, so you really have to be selective. but beauty, gifting, investing in your face, those are all trends that are happening. we upgraded shares of tapestry, accessories, that's a trend that's happening, and luxury has been very robust, too. so there's pockets of different trends overall, the lower end consumer remains under a lot of pressure, so there's a fair bit of reason to be cautious further more, we have lack of stimulus that's something we're watching. stimulus benefitted this summer by about 3 points. >> oliver, did you say -- i think -- did you say pants that people are shopping for other things but not pants, is that what you said? >> it's been an issue. >> you're not talking about like zoom calls, you're fully clothed now, right >> i'm wearing pants. >> what did you mean by that

>> that was your example of clothing is what you meant it's not a commentary on all of us working from home i got it no, i'm kidding. let me ask you about walmart and target have they been outperforming in their battle with amazon to stay relevant have they been out performing by making it attractive for people to continue to come into their stores or by, you know, if you can't beat them, join them, and they're basically trying to online their way into, you know, into competing directly with amazon, what are they doing better or i guess they're doing both >> it's about bricks plus clicks it's about combining the two channels, and it's about using the physical asset to your advantage, and that is grocery curbside pickup at walmart, as well as drive up at target it's also about being an easy, hyper convenient place to shop,

and both of those retailers have done a great job walmart is an industry leader. 55% of it is grocery and the grocery frequency, safety trust that matters, also stores have become increasingly important given the immediacy and safety factor of needing food and needing these essential goods. they have held their own these are also companies becoming ecosystems with marketplace models, advertising models and others ways, such as walmart plus so in many ways, retail is evolving into new platforms and that's very formidable competition where physical assets matter. 90% of america is within 10 miles of a walmart, and 140 people visit a walmart every week >> amazing how the stocks have really performed what your favorites are again? >> walmart, target, costco we also like ulta as well. beauty, and peloton is a name we like as well, and don't forget luxury stocks such as lvmh, and

tapestry >> okay. wrote all of those down. oliver, thank you for playing. i just like to kid around, especially in this day and age, who knows. it's crazy anyway >> it's a connected experience, all you're saying, more printers, less pants and rethinking retail, it's coming back >> stop with the less pants. stop with the less -- thank you. thank you, oliver. all right. we'll see you later. andrew, i don't know we all need to, i guess we all need to come clean on this kind of stuff >> i'm wearing pants. >> you're fine, right? >> you know what i'm doing, i'm pulling a kernan this morning, i have my abc lieu lilulu lemons y so comfy >> joseph, shield your eyes,

shield your eyes >> okay. those are my pants just for disclosure. these aren't lulu lemonpants a well. >> we're coming back in just a moment did salesforce overpay for slack? ch that is the conversation i was not looking at my pants, making sure my mic is on john ford giving both sides of the argument as he always does for the second biggest software deal ever. we have that conversation after the break. take a look at the biggest movers on the nasdaq this morning, "squawk box" comes back right after this tesla on the move again. time now for today's aflac trivia question. this forbes 30 under 30 uber has over 9 million subscribers and has been a spokesperson for brands like hollister and five below.

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aflac trivia questions, this forbes 30 under 30 uber has over 9 million subscribers and has been a spokesperson for brands like hollister and five below. who is she the answer, emma chamberlain welcome back to "squawk box. how many people got that answer right? i'm curious. i'm curious. tweet at us on that. meantime, salesforce announcing its intent to buy slack this week for $27.7 billion the second biggest software deal ever not only is the price high, this deal is expensive. salesforce paying 24 times next year's sales the question of course, is it a good idea. who has the answer well, john ford is here to weigh in he might have two answers. john >> well, is it a good idea, andrew let me tell you how good an idea it is. slack has redefined enterprise communication. butterfield tried to start a

gaming company, failed, and flicker came out instead, sold to yahoo for $25.15 years ago when that was a lot of money then he tried to start another gaming company and it failed, slack came out of it, and he sold it for $27 million. all marc benioff how this works is ask stew benningfield how to start. benioff has a track record for making them work he has founder vision and credibility to merge cultures. stew butterfield is a founder who knows how to keep working on an idea until it's a win in the top tier of tech giants, he has to take on microsoft, adobe, a top field leader like butterfield gets him there for around 15% of his market cap. >> i hear you. so money is not an object here there's got to be another side to this. >> well, i mean, on the other

hand, these are publicly traded companies. of course money is an object, and the multiple salesforce is paying for slack is insane, 24 times for revenue. that can't pencil out. there's no plan for selling slack into the salesforce base that justifies that. there's no integration of slack across the portfolio that adds $28 billion in value i get the argument about benioff, and how good he is at acquisitions here's the counter argument, apple has managed to go into a $2 trillion company without going out on 11 figure buying binges there was nothing better to buy isn't a great reason to buy something. i know that's the equity market motto of 2020 but the year is almost over, andrew. >> okay. so we know for butterfield and for slack it's a great deal. i don't even think you can do an on the other hand for that i think it's on one hand for that >> yeah. >> but tell us for real, what does jon fortt really think

here, does this end up making sense? >> i think it's a long shot, but it's the kind of long shot that founder plus founder can make work this reminds me of facebook buying instagram of course the scale is entirely different but at the time, that was a little team, and facebook was paying billions, and people were like, there's no way this can pencil out well, unless you can buy an entirely new way at social networking that not only transforms instagram but also transforms facebook. there's that kind of possibility here especially when you look at benioff really needing more strong leadership at this company if he's going to grow it at the scale that he wants to. a founder like butterfield could do it, but it's a long shot. >> hey, real quick in terms of microsoft teams competing as you know so very well with slack, are they ultimately going to have to buy a video product to make it work >> no. i don't think they necessarily have to buy a video product. i wonder if this puts pressure on the likes of microsoft, even

the likes of amazon to answer in some way you know, there's been a somewhat wild idea floated out there that microsoft might try to get together with even somebody like adobe, incredibly expensive, but when you look at experience cloud, when you look at enterprise, that's the kind of thing, if we're really consolidating that maybe could happen. >> jon fortt, showing us all hands this morning appreciate it. thank you. >> anytime >> becky. thanks, andrew still to come on "squawk box" this morning, the hunt for yield, investors are searching for cash returns from the stock market dom chu looks at some of the names that could benefit your portfolio. >> and later, discovery launching a streaming service and partnering with verizon. discovery ceo david zasloff will talk about the service along with ronan dunn. here are the futures this hour you're going to see the dow

futures are down by 30 points, s&p off by about 2 1/2, nasdaq indicated up by 23 "squawk box" will be right back. keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

trading the race for a vaccine, since the market closed on march 11th, theday that the w.h.o. declared covid-19 a global pandemic, the s&p is up by 34%, believe it or not. so is pfizer, but other vaccine developers, like j and j and merck are up by just 3%. compare to shares of moderna which have soared by over 500% andrew. thanks, becky. meantime, the uk approving pfizer's vaccine yesterday and millions may soon be able to take it and hopefully get their lives back to normal in some way. julia tannenbaum hit the streets of london to find out what people think she's in the streets now, and it's raining, as it always is in london good morning or good afternoon to you >> reporter: good morning, andrew well, certainly as it's quite a british welcome back to post

lock down life, yesterday's big vaccine announcement came right alongside the lifting of the second national lock down here in england, so life getting a little bit more back to normal, but we are now under this three-tier system, which entails very harsh restrictions for the bulk of the country still. now, last night, the prime minister boris johnson addressed the nation, praising scientists for this vaccine breakthrough but urged the british public to remain cautious, saying it will be months still before our most vulnerable are protected we did get a chance last night to get down to garden, one of the most bustling parts of the city, to ask people on the ground how they're feeling about this vaccine news. take a listen. >> interesting obviously from a distance, it's been nice to sort of see people having a little bit more normality >> happy. >> a bit indifferent as well i feel like it's all kind of, we

keep going into lulls and highs, kind of all the news we get now, i'm just wasting for the next news, really, so it's kind of a weird, like, indifferent feeling as well. >> you don't want to get too excited just in case next week there's something else. >> reporter: i would say the overall feeling on the street last night, and looking around today is relief. people are relieved. they're feeling hopeful, but still people are reluck tantant get too excited and that's similar to what we have heard from uk leadership last night. still a very long road there are a number of logistical operational challenges and it's going to be quite some time before we're back to normal. people absolutely cheering this development, and yesterday, felt like a historic day here in the uk andrew >> so before you go, what does this mean for business owners and in particular, the restrictions that have impacted

shops? >> reporter: so the uk is now -- england is now under a three-tier system, so every area of the country is in three different tiers. in londons we're in tier two, right in the middle. this means that nonessential shops can now open for business. pubs and restaurants are open as well there are still restrictions around mixing with other households and notably here in london, you're able to meet with up to six people outside your household. it has to be outside, no meeting in doors life is far from normal across the country. >> juliana tatelbaum in london the scarf, it's full britain full on. appreciate it very very much talk to you soon joe. >> and the good branding, too, the good cnbc branding on the umbrella. coming up, a look at some of the stocks that are able to

marry high dividend yields with more stable underlying share prices and then the cochairs of the problem solvers kcaucus they haven't had a lot to do in like the last 150 years. ngssressman tom reed, and coreman josh gottheimer on the latest covid relief plan we'll be right back. flexshares may look simple on the outside. but inside every etf... there are untold hours of careful construction... infinite "what ifs?" and contingency plans. creating funds that help target gaps in client portfolios. tap untapped potential. and strengthen confidence in you. flexshares. powered by over a century of investment expertise before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com

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investors are hunting for yield, but not all dividend payouts are created equal. definitely something to think about, dominic chu, back at cnbc hq it's the old -- if it seems too good to be true, it might be, dom. >> if your stock loses 2/3 of its value, and your yield goes to 8 or 9%, maybe it's not as sustainable, joe, right, as some other dividends out there. in light of the moves we have seen for companies trying to preserve capital or preserve their dividend we wanted to take a look at the s&p 500 and look at the stocks that have higher than average dividend yields. in this case, we put it higher than that. dividend yields of 3% or more in the s&p 500, and so that we have an ability to kind of marry out some of that dividend yield with

positive price return. we looked at both six month and one year price appreciations they had to be positive. we have 20 stocks that have passed that particular screen. three of them are names that you kind of know pretty well one of them is 3 m that blue chip stock year to date is down 2 1/2%. over the last year, it's still positive and over the last six months, it's still positive. it actually carries a 3.4% dividend yield right now that's possibly one of those stocks that you're looking for this that stage. another one to look at is a big telecon company, one of the industries most associated with dividend payouts verizon shares, year to date, just about flat but still positive over the one-year, 12 month, and six months as well. we're talking about a 4.1% dividend yield for verizon stocks, so another one of those perhaps more stable dividends, and one of the higher payouts that passes all three of those conditions is abvi whbvie, posie

six month as well. this has about a 5% dividend yield right now, so if you're looking for some of the dividend yields, yes, you can find them in stocks that have taken a huge crater and those dividend yields may not be sustained or some of these actually have gone up over the medium and longer term and still have anywhere from 3 to # 5% payouts investors look to whether or not those difrd pvidend payouts are relatively safe compared to other ones out there >> it used to be the dogs of the dow strategy, right, highest yielders, ready to go the next year, right? >> yeah, i mean, there was and there are etfs that track the dividend aristocrats, the companies that have increased their dividend for 25 straight years. fund managers look at those types of stocks, and remember, those types of stocks do pretty well over time, they're not as

sexy or go up as much as say like the faang type stocks do. >> the aristocats, i love that. >> remember that cartoon >> it reminds me of streaming because it reminds me of disney, which reminds me of verizon, which reminds me of a segment we've got coming up with zaslav, so it's amazing how you do that. i think becky is going to tell us about it. do you know that there's another masters in like four months, have you thought about that? >> yes >> you guys are the best, i love it. >> just say whatever comes up. and then it comes out here anyway, thank you. thanks, dom. we will see you. >> you knew that, huh, beck, april, unbelievable. >> it's right around the corner again. you didn't have one for a year and a half, now you get one all of a sudden, backing back up. >> exactly

>> by the way, the aristocats, trying to think of the music from that. anyway, when we come back, lawmakers are rushing to pass a pandemic relief package before the end of the year as the outbreak ra outbreak rages around the country the we're going to speak to congressmen on both sides of the aisle to helped write the recent bipartisan plan that's been put forth that's coming up next. and later as joe so weirdly got to and mentioned discovery ceo zaslav on his partnership with verizon plus. we'll talk about that. "squawk box" will be right back. ♪ i joined amazon because i wanted to change education and i am impatient. amazon gives me the resources to change the world at a pace that i want to change it. ♪ we provide students stem scholarships and teachers with support. ♪ i'm a fighter and i'm fighting for all students.

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we live with at&t. it was a lapse in judgment. at&t, we called this house meeting because you advertise gig-speed internet, but we can't sign up for that here. yeah, but i'm just like warming up to those speeds. you've lived here two years. the personal attacks aren't helping, karly. don't you have like a hot pilates class to get to or something? [ muffled scream ] stop living with at&t. xfinity can deliver gig to the most homes.

after months of a stimulus stalemate, house speaker nancy pelosi, and senate leader chuck schumer are backing a smaller covid relief package of $908 billion that proposed plan has been called a step in the right direction, but majority leader mitch mcconnell is still not on board with that plan joining us right now with more on this is congressman josh gottheimer, and congressman tom reed, they're the cochairs of the bipartisan problem solvers caucus, and they both helped craft the latest relief plan gentlemen, it's good to see you both here, and i have to say after so many months of back and forth, and more than 250 days since congress has acted to do anything interms of relief, i have to say i'm a little jaded at this point, and i don't necessarily believe that anything is getting done am i wrong to be jaded at this point, congressman goottheimer

i'll start with you. >> i believe now you're seeing the momentum in the next week to get this emergency package into law, and $908 billion, you've got democrats and republicans both from the house and the senate backing in emergency relief package, and i think there's a deep recognition, becky, that we've got to get something done now people are really hurting. small businesses are going out our local governments need help, and our states need help, and we've got to deliver it before we go home for the holidays, and i think right now is the moment where it's going to get done. >> congressman reed, if something is going to get down, mitch mcconnell has to agree to take it to a vote on the senate floor. what's the biggest difference between the plan you all are backing, and the $500 billion plan that senate mcconnell has passed in the senate. >> i think where senator mcconnell has moved i think the number now is at $600 billion, is my understanding, and that's getting closer to the 908

billion, and i think the one piece that we really have to finalize here is the state and local government piece and this is going to require bipartisan support mitch mcconnell understands that we understand that in the house, and the white house understands that, talking to all of the players involved here, and when you look at what we put forward, $160 billion, you couple that with what we're talking about that's out there in the range of reason, to get done. you're right at that $900 billion mark at the end of the day, and i'll just tell you, working together, getting this taken care of. it's time to listen to the american people and as josh said, get it done. it's time to do it let's get it done before the holidays. >> congressman reed, what's the $600 billion number, what's that include on top of the 500 billion that's already in the senate bill. that's news to us. >> there's new information over the last 72 hours where essentially it wasn't in black and white yet. it was 550 to $700 billion, is what the word in d.c. has been

on the street, so to speak we're real close you look at where the democratic leadership was, at $1. $1.3 trillion, now supporting this bipartisan package we put together you're seeing the movement in the senate, and you see the white house in a position to potentially sign a package they recognize we have to get this done as covid surges, as people continue to suffer, businesses running out of lifelines and the bottom line is this is in the range of reasons. it's not a perfect bill but it is a compromised bill that can bring people together. that's what we demonstrated with the nine senators and 50 members of the problem solvers caucus when we stood there together and rolled it out said this is where we can find common ground. >> congressman reed is the $600 billion that you think mcconnell has agreed to in principle or in theory, is that the same as -- does it match up with the money in the 908 billion because the devil in the

details has been the real disruptive force here? >> i think the point i'm trying to steress is people are moving on both sides, moving from the range of unreasonable into the range of reason, and that's why i think we were so critical in the problem solvers caucus and with the bipartisan senate group where we rolled this out together now people are actually looking at the number. the numbers are reasonable, they're based on what the american people and american businesses need today. and that's where this package is so important, and it's bringing people to that common ground area, and that's how the sausage is made in washington, d.c >> congressman gottheimer it's my understanding the biggest sticking points are money to the state asks local municipalities, and the other sticking point was this protection from businesses, liability protection from covid lawsuits being brought against them and i know your proposal

has a short-term solution to that, short-term protection for businesses is that negotiable if mcconnell and other senators say they don't want to give this money to the state and local municipalities, would you be willing to change the liability protection to a longer term structure? >> in the compromised proposal we put together here, we talked about both of those issues as you might imagine. liability protection, and also worker protection, the two go together and have to go to together as tom said, we've got a good number for state and local governments and governments of all sizes to help them get through this yes, that's always been a tough point. we also have other resources to help state and local governments, including for transit and our schools, and other resources to help local governments and states through this the bottom line is, i think when you look at the package in totality, including $300 a week to help our families through this, and food assistance

because you have so many families taking food assistance for the first time, the ppp, second round of ppp for our small businesses, which is key right now, as you know, a third of install businesses in new jersey have gone out of business already, including 28% of restaurants. so everyone needs help and you're kind of, as tom said, at the end of the rope right now, we're running out of resources and for so many folks, we have to get emergency funding to them i think that's what's going to force issues, to get to our bicameral, bipartisan deal >> gentlemen, i did want to ask you about a big headline on the front page of the "new york times" today about senator perdue and his stock trading, apparently traded over 2,500 stocks in one term, many of those stocks were related to businesses that his own committees oversaw, and i

thought i would start with congressman reed and get congressman gottheimer's view on what you think the policy should be in washington for both congress and for the senate and for the credibility of the public and how they think about your work. >> yeah, i think that's where a few years back, working with eric cantor from virginia when he was in the house. we adopted and passed the stock act, and we brought more transparency to these issues, especially in the house of representatives, under our ethics package that we put together and so transparency is the key to this, and so if there's any question of impropriety, where members are using inside information or anything along those lines, there needs to be accountability and there needs to be that information out there readily available so that folks know that members are not playing that game of using their official position to advance their own personal interests >> i couldn't agree more

>> congressman gottheimer, congressman reed, good look on pushing forward this plan. we hope you come back with updates. >> thank you so much >> thank you. when we come back, our exclusive interview with discover ceo david zaslav and verizon executive ronan dunne on their company's streaming partnership. that's straight ahead. and the latest read on jobless claims, futures are up dow futures up by 6 points s&p up by 1. sdda have been negative all y. naaq up by about 31 points, and "squawk box" will be right back

good morning, an unfathomable coronavirus milestone. the virus has now hospitalized 100,000 people in the united states single day cases and deaths hitting new records as the director of the cdc says the next few months could be the most difficult time for public health in american history this hour we're going to get a new read on the economic toll of the virus. initial jobless claims once again expected to number nearly 800,000, and what do we do when covid forces us inside well, we watch tv. we're going to have a new option

soon discovery plus announcing its joining the streaming wars, and ceo david zaslav is going to be joining us live. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now all right. watching it go back and forth, the dow that is, between positive and negative. good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin u.s. equity futures, the nasdaq's been solidly in the green for a while, but the s&p and the dow have just barely gotten above the flat line, just a couple of seconds ago, as you can see now. i guess we had the dow up 10 or so earlier, but up 3, s&p up fractionally we're just a few minutes away from our big interview with

discovery ceo david zaslav and the head of verizon's consumer group they'll be talking to us about the upcoming launch of discovery plus, the latest participant in the streaming wars and it's unique in a lot of ways we're going to hear all about it, and what it has to do with verizon, and if you do have verizon, certain plans, i think 55 million people get it free, i think, for the first year. anyway, beck, what's going on? >> well, first, we're going to get to the markets, and some signals that we're seeing that suggest that bonds might look like they're endorsing the stock market rally our senior markets commentator, mike santoli has more on that front, what are you seeing >> remember back in the summer, we were making new highs, july and august, led by the nasdaq, and the big question, what's going on with the bond markets, yields aren't moving

look at the s&p first of all here that was that august run up. we didn't see a lot of response from the bond market here we are, looks like the market has been doing not much of anything in the last three or four weeks sentiment is definitely getting a little bit over excited. but right now, the behavior of the market itself looks okay especially because the big tech stocks that have been resting are starting to get into gear. take a look here, though, at the yield curve. this is a big move, back to 2018 levels, a difference between the ten-year yield and two-year yield, usually it means bond market is positioning for healthy levels of inflation, and perhaps better growth next year. remember last year there was a lot of concern about how we went negative on the yield curve. that's usually a foretelling of a recession. high yield bonds sturdy right here if you look at the behavior of the high yield bond over the last month that's in white and this is the intermediate treasury, and that's the price of the

treasuries, when they are diverging, it means corporate risk spreads are going down. again, very positive, all of it fits together. i do think, again, the one big question is does everybody already realize this position for it, making big bets in this direction, a lot of the sentiment and positioning stuff is starting to steam a little frothy, that might be something for the market to contend with, into year end or 2021, beck. >> mike, thanks, good to see you. we're going to shift to the auto market car buyers are going into the dealerships looking to makea deal they are changing the way they pay for their new rides. phil lebeau has new data >> good morning. this is a good snapshot of how the american consumer is paying for the vehicles they are buying in the new and used market and the interesting data, it comes from both really you are now seeing people borrowing record amounts when it comes to buying a used vehicle in the third quarter, which is basically analyzing millions of

auto loans, and auto purchases every quarter, 21,438 was the average loan that's up almost $1,000 in the monthly payment, hitting a record high of $397. on the new side, what you're seeing is people are saying, look, if i can pay cash, i'm going to pay cash. you have monthly payments, and the new side, close to a record high, but they are fore going paying with a loan they are doing more with cash. a record number, 17.5% that's the percentage of new purchases that were done purely with cash, and that's the highest experion has seen, if not an all time high in the case of general motors. they have moved higher substantially in the last six months because of the tight inventory out there for new vehicles, particularly with pickup trucks and suvs and for the auto dealer stocks they have had a heck of a run, and this is a combination of factors here.

one, you've got low rates, two you've got strong demand for used vehicles, and people are paying as much as the auto makers are asking when it comes to used vehicles i have talked to a number of dealers. all say the same thing, you don't handle right now you tell people, this is the price in certain models that you're going to have to pay and for the most part, they're getting it that's a snapshot in terms of where people were in the third quarter when it comes to buying new and used autos >> okay. phil lebeau, appreciate it we will be watching. i was going to ask you, i know we got to run. what did you think of the goldman report on the tesla front, did you see that? >> i saw part of it. i have not seen all f of it, ani think when you look at tesla, it's all about the execution and i think people are looking at them, and i know people say the valuation is crazy but look, even if they fall a little bit short of the year end delivery numbers, if they execute in the next year,

especially with two new plants coming online, it's going to be a huge year for them >> all right phil lebeau, great to see you. appreciate it. when we come back, a lot more on "squawk box" ahead, preparing for the latest battle in the streaming wars. discovery announcing its new service and we will be speaking exclusively with the company's ceo david zaslav and the head of the verizon consumer business. all of that is ahead right after this it's down to the wire,

the team's been working around the clock. we've had to rethink our whole approach. we're going to give togetherness. logistically, it's been a nightmare. i'm not sure it's going to work. it'll work.

i didn't know you were listening. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning take a quick look at futures at this hour. the dow has turned positive, looks like it's going to be up about 4 points, nasdaq up about 32 points. the s&p 500 literal lly as i wa talking, up a quarter point. it's floating around there meantime, shares of snowflakes are under pressure this morning. it reported a loss of $1.01 per share. revenue growing 119% year over year snowflakes provides of course cloud based alternatives today that warehouses. and as you know so well, after that ipo has been on quite a tear meantime shares of cyber security company crowd strike, they are soaring today, take a

look at this one the company's earnings of $0.08 per share, beating estimates, beat revenue from subscriptions, 81% of the quarter stocks up 217% for the year. take that, bitcoin and shares of pvh on the rise as well, stronger than expected third quarter results. the owner of brands included tommy hilfiger, calvin klein, revenue of more than $2 billion also beating the street in that stock up about 1 1/2%. when we come back, discovery ceo david zaslav is going to join us also bringing with him the head of verizon's consumer business to talk about the launch of discovery's new streaming service. plus we've got initial jobless claims data coming up right here we're watching all of this very closely ahead of friday's employment report. stay tuned, david zaslav after the break.

discovery is entering the streaming wars, announcing the global launch of discovery plus on january 4th the company's partnering with verizon to offer 55 million

customers up to one year of discovery plus for free right now, let's welcome discovery ceo david zaslav it's been a while. good to see you, and verizon consumer group ceo ronan dunne, and thanks for joining us. >> thanks, joe >> i want to get right to you, but for the verizon, for the free stuff for a year, it says on certain plans is it on most of the plans, ronan, you don't have to have some unbelievably premium plan to get it, do you? >> no, it's great, available to all our unlimited customer that's more than 50 million verizon consumers on day one that's more than 20 million family plans that will immediately have access to this, so that's a fantastic start, and brilliant content, and just demonstrates the enhancement of value we're offering at verizon. >> zas, you know, what do we go back 30 years, remember when you were trying to get sub vibescris

at cnbc, if you would have come out of the box at 50 million, what would you have done for that in the old days, you would have cut off your arm. >> i was taking you and faber on the road one of the great things about the direct-to-consumer business is you could reach all of america, and we could reach all -- we'll talk later about us being able to reach the entire globe in every language, we're the leading media company with the largest in-language library, but this is a huge opportunity for us here in the u.s ronan, and i have been working together with hanz and with aaron and frank, their great marketing team over there, the last two months getting ready for this we'll be in every store, and we love this because verizon has a great relationship with their subscribers, and they also understand how to drive content to create more value for their customers, and so following

disney, you know, is a huge value for us we have been getting ready for it and the verizon team, ronan, specifically, has been helpful to us. we need more original content. we're going to be launching with 50 original series, all of which we'll announce today, the full detail part of that was sitting down with verizon and saying, okay, you've got quality brands, you've got great characters. you have content, a library as big as netflix let's go really big together because we want this to be hugely successful. ronan, and hans and the team have been very helpful to us, and telling us what really works. >> that's good for, yeah, that's quite a partner. let me ask you a question. whenever you've been on, you were very early in saying that there's just no way around it, discovery's got to go streaming, got to go ott. but it's been a while that you have been planning it, so i'm just -- the difference between

doing it early and getting ahead of people or coming on now, but i'm looking at how you're doing it, and it looks like you learned from other people that have launched, and maybe it doesn't matter that it's crowded because you're doing the peacock price at 4.99. i have said, you know, give me a minute worth of adds, i don't notice that. it's just the three-minute gutter filter ad that kills me i can do a minute. 4.99 give me a minute of ads, it's find. it seems like you learned from your old friends at nbc how to do this. >> we think we're just in time our content has never been stronger with the pandemic over the last nine months, our shares up hugely. people are watching our content, everywhere in the world, and every language, and we have been quietly producing all of this original content, but as we come to the marketplace now in early january with verizon, and with

sky in the uk and telecom italy and partners, we come in the u.s., there are seven services that are doing scripted series and scripted movies and they have done a great job educating people how to pay for content, move it on all platforms how you get it from verizon, how do you get disney, how do you move it around, so we hit the market in january. we're one of one when people watch tv, 40% of what they watch is scripted series and scripted movies we're everything else. we might not have the big red carpets but 90 day fiance is the number one show on television, number one, and we're bringing a lot of content and a load of people in america find huge value in, and we're different than everybody else. we are the place for non-fiction entertainment. we pulled in a and e, history and lifetime, and then we have chip and joanna gaines, oprah

winfrey, the entire bbc library. so when you look at our offering, we have taken our time because we wanted to own the whole non-fiction space. the other seven are playing for the 40 to 45%. we own the whole rest of it with all the quality brands, and we wanted a great partner in our key markets, and together with verizon, with all of these great brands, we think we have a winner here, and there is a lot of white space we did a lot of research there are a lot of people that want to sit down at 8:00 at night, we're a great complement to netflix, a great complement to disney because we're completely different and we have content that people can watch while they're home schooling their kids, making dinner. people watch hgtv, women, the way men watch fox news in america. we have another one with food, same thing, ooanother one with ,

and another one with oprah for african-american women we have an extraordinary offering for women, a good offering for men as well the most powerful in terms of brands and characters for women, and we're going to lean into that, and that's something that ronan has looked at and said between the bbc and your science you have this great content that women and families want to watch together and you have all of this content that women love, and families love and there's room for that, and that's one of the reasons that verizon, you know, was so keen for us to partner, and why we were so keen to partner with verizon. >> you know, you got -- i don't know what you -- you know, you must have talked to barry or something. maybe you didn't barry diller obviously knows a lot about this business. >> i love barry. >> did you see what he said, well, you must, i told david zaslav discovery could own nonfiction program and be an essential streaming service, which is, i don't know if any -- there's so many of them around,

about the only one that could have a chance at competing with netflix, probably, and i think he's got the guts and the conviction to pull it off. i mean, geez, that's pretty nice, david. that's a pretty high compliment. >> almost a year ago i sat down with barry, and i said, look, we want to pull everything together and go above the globe we're going to put our whole company behind this. we think we could be one of one, the owner of nonfiction entertainment, which is what people really love it may not be -- it may say their number one thing is the crown, but the number one thing they spend time with is chip and joanna gaines or oprah winfrey barry said if you go big, i think you could own this space everywhere in the world. when i spoke to him on saturday, we talked about verizon, we talked about the documentaries, all of our original content, and, you know, he helped give me conviction you know, and we're kind of kissing cousins because barry and i have been together for a long time because of john

malone, you know, who's maybe the greatest strategic thinker in this business, and john and i have been plotting this for five years, how do we aggregate content that people love so much that they will pay for it before they pay for dinner, and we have all of these super fan groups, we think, and outside the u.s., a huge strategic advantage with loads of local content that we think is going to make a difference but right now on january 4th, it is all about ronan and us, and his creative marketing team, and their stores, and we want to drive that as one major avenue and then we've got our own super highway of going direct to consumers with our product outside of verizon, but verizon is a big big deal for us, and it's a big scaler. it's a key partnership for us. >> hey, daifvid, speak to this issue, and verizon a huge partner to launch the marketing with this. what do you think the customer

acquisition cost digitally is going to be. how much do you expect being able to lever raj tage the peope coming to the various web sites and brands you have. how much is going to have to be markets dollars to push out beyond that? >> you know, the honest answer is it's hard to tell we have had some very good success in europe, using our existing platforms where we -- and in a number of markets in europe we're the equivalent of nbc and cbs put together plus all of our affinity content, and in those markets, what we sle d learned is when we put local content and local sport together, we're completely differentiated from netflix and others and that by just promoting on our own platforms, the question yesterday we got was how many subscribers are you going to get that have cable, we think it's going to be a lot, and they're going to keep cable. we have seen in europe, if we put our library up and you can get local sports and local original content, a lot of people that have cable say i want that too and i want it

commercial free, and so it really depends, if our platforms work well, our content, we're promoting on food and saying there's so much more on discovery plus, hg, there's so much more on discovery, come on and watch the new attenborough series, perfect planning, if that is really strong, then our costs are going to be a lot lower. if we're spending more money to get subscribers outside of our existi existing universe, which is what we're going to do with verizon and outside of verizon, we're going all in, we're pretty disciplined about seeing terminal value and making sure we get the value for ourselves it's going to take a while to see how that works out. >> ronan, this partnership, it's not just a year, is it at that point, i guess there will be, you know, the verizon customers will start getting bills. it's much more than just the initial launch can you tell us exactly what

that entails and what the plans are? >> yeah, sure, and building on a couple of questions, the first thing to say is i think we can help in this first phase for the awareness, so we can actually create an awful lot of excitement across a massive scale, and that's one of the great strengths. we're the largest direct-to-consumer distributor of digital product in the united states, and we have turned down opportunities in the content space so we can work with world class partners like david and discovery, and what we want to do is curate better quality, better experience, and better choice for customers and all of course delivered on the very best network. the fact that we have reinforced our cbn network to show we'll be the best place for screaming evidences the capability that we bring as a partner, and we definitely see cord cutting and cord shaving as the trend and as david said, we think we can complement what people are taking in their basic linear with really high quality

targeted content that will allow them to have a stickier and deeper relationship with us as verizon because we're bringing enhanced value, we'll also discover the real quality and depth of catalog in places like discovery, and we think that's great for our business because it also helps our cost of acquisition, and retention, and it also ensures that our customers get more value >> right exactly. all right. we got to end it there ronan, thank you david zaslav, it's good to see you. keep us updated. >> thank you so much. >> you are welcome, a programming note, jason blum spotifies, don as they involve the live stream this afternoon to talk about transforming media. register to join us at cnbcevents.com/evolvelive stream we'll be right back. when we started carvana, they told us

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welcome back to "squawk box," yes, it's important breaking news, initial continuing claims, initial claims down. 712,000 versus a slightly revised 787,000.

this breaks the streak the last couple of weeks, of course, have been moving higher, and if we look at continuing claims, they continue to drop, they have dropped all of september, october, and november at least thus far and that moves from 6,089,000, to $5,525,000, so once again, continuing claims seem to lead the way we all understand that these numbers are higher than we would like them. they're higher than pre-covid. there's a lot of tough restrictions in cities and states the efficacy of restrictions we could debate one thing we know for sure, they have negative consequences and that's an issue that needs to be addressed. becky, it looks like interest rate markets are taking this in stride, meaning not out of the realm of expectations, and rates are hovering at the highest

levels since the beginning of november and about ready to challenge levels we haven't seen since march. >> looking at getting back to 1% on the ten-year. rick stay there, we're going to have more information on this. steve liesman, you want to give us your take >> what i'm looking for is the number of extended benefits the pandemic emergency unemployment assistance, that looks like it's about flat i had a 4 1/2 million number i don't know if rick sees it but the dynamic that's happening, first of all, it's right that the continuing claims is lower than expected. i actually had an estimate here for 5.9 million from the street. and this came in at 5 1/2. what i don't know, becky, what i'll figure out in a second, is whether or not we have the dynamic that's been in place people rolling off regular benefits on to the extended benefits program, and of course i think rick hinted at this or

even said outright what's going to happen on december 26th is that millions will lose their benefits and that's why i believe has lit the kind of fire underneath congress at long last to think about what happens to these folks who don't have work. we don't know the total number of unemployment, we'll find out on friday. there will be a large number of people who will lose benefits and that could have potential impact it's the wrong time of year. for people to be losing benefits from the government. becky, give me a second. i'll get you that number. >> steve and rick are going to stay with us, and continue to look through those things. in the meantime, we'll add in a few more voices to talk about the economy and claims numbers, what they mean austin ghoulsby, former council of economic adviser chairman and a professor at the university of chicago booth school of

business and caroline, welcome to both of you. austin, let me start with you, these numbers, again, we know these are terrible numbers, maybe not as bad as had been expected it's difficult when you know that cases are surging, economies are starting to shut down consumers are nervous about going out, and you're facing a deadline of benefits what does that add up to what can you tell us about where we are in the economy? >> i think it's pretty bad i'm happy it came in better than expected but this is still worse than the worst week of all time before covid came, and with the virus raging out of control, just the past history, whenever the virus rages out of control, people get nervous and they stop going out. so we definitely are counting on the vaccine getting out as quickly as possible. but in the meantime, we've got thousands of people dying unnecessarily, and now we're going to threaten millions of

people's livelihood, and millions of businesses shut down i really hope that congress is able to do something and come together and get some relief. >> >> caroline, we are seeing signs that congress is moving towards a bipartisan deal. i don't know how likely it is that anything gets done. when you look at numbers, and what's happening, and realize the impact, what do you think is the best course of action? >> well, i think -- i agree with austan, these numbers are serious, and i think that the trajectory is even more, some states will move into stay-at-home orders until the orders we have now in california that means more lost jobs, and therefore even if congress is starting to look at some extended benefits relief, it's probably going to show up a little too late to help many

people who are facing the most serious threats of unemployment. so this is definitely a difficult time >> caroline, what would you say to some of these congressional leaders? i mean, we still have senators and congressmen who come on who say, well, we're not sure we need it. the market's still hanging in there. what would you say to them >> well, i just don't think that the market hanging in there is a particularly good indicator of whether unemployed people need sort of stimulus relief or stimulus payments and whether small businesses need it i think the market reflects larger factors at this point and also just a longer term outlook. the market has a much longer term outlook than people who are paying their bills over the winter. >> steve, you had a point? >> yeah, i want to try to bridge the gap between the market and

humanity in the sense that, you know, rick is 100% right these numbers are coming down. i have had a chance to look at them, a little bit less of a rise in extended benefits, up 59,000 you had the decline of 350,000 in the total number of claims that are out there with all the programs together. they're improving but austan is also 100% correct in the sense that these numbers are much much higher, not much higher, but about equal to the worst week we had in the great financial crisis it's a human tragedy, but again, the narcotic, i thimarket seemsg with an asterisk that i have to adhere, things can get a little weird in the holiday week, so thanksgiving might gum up the works just a little bit, but there's some improvement but still down to very difficult levels. >> hey, austan, you're a

washington -- you have seen how the sausage gets made there. you spent a lot of time going through and seeing how things get passed on both sides of the a aisle and how it works through the system is there room for a deal to be done even if it's a skinnier deal than had originally been proposed by the democrats or frankly even the white house >> i'm a little pessimistic that there is space to reach an agreement. as i said before, i thought if nancy pelosi and steven mnuchin, if it was just up to them, they would have already had a deal. they would have had it before the election for whatever reason, it feels like mitch mcconnell has decided that reaching an agreement would demoralize the base at a moment when he wants to win this georgia runoff so in an environment like that, although there's a bipartisan group trying to come up with some skinny deal or whatever you

want to call it, i don't think it can go because i don't think mitch mcconnell wants anything right now. >> rick, you have a comment, too? >> yeah, you know, when my kids were younger, if they asked me for more money than their allowance would allow, and i gave them a skinnier reply, they would always grab it and an hour later they would come back and try to get another skinny addition to me, there's a lot of moving parts here but if you want to be simple about it, for months, skinny deals could have been done democrats could have taken less than they wanted and then they could have come back for more. because any money in the pockets of some of these families would be essential and the other issue is when we see governors closing businesses, they're at the epicenter of some of these areas but they're in restaurants themselves, it really makes us all wonder whether the restrictions are worse than trying to deal with some of the issues these all move into the psychology of what senators are

thinking of and what senators vote for, which mitch mcconnell is probably highly aware of before he calls the votes. >> hey, becky. >> that's politics but i think what matters here -- just a second, steve that's politics, i think that that is clearly what we have watched on both sides of the aisle that's been a mess and been a disaster but you still have the reality of people who are suffering and businesses that are suffering and an american economy that's suffering and damage that is building up -- >> and decisions by people that don't seem to connect with some of the scientific reality. there's a lot of parts to this if we're going to point to people that should take some blame, there's a lot of fingers i have, and a lot of directions i can go to. >> just don't wipe your face with those fingers. >> and a little more interested in trying to find some answers and solutions and trying to get help to the people who need it, to the businesses that need it, on both sides. >> then vote and take every amount of money that ever comes available. >> well, yeah, no question this

has been screwed up since the start, and there have been many opportunities that both sides have completely spun on this it's a little ridiculous at this point, it's been more than 250 days. >> rick, how do you reconcile the fact that democrats -- >> you're calling deaths unnecessary. i can't even deal with your logic. seriously. >> my logic goes this way. the democrats proposed more than 2 trillion, a bipartisan group said let's compromise on 900 billion. mitch mcconnell said let's do no more than 300. and opposes it >> nancy said no she wouldn't take less than -- >> now we should do nothing or move on and try and find a deal? >> they should try to find a deal >> i'm not stuck in the past i say take the money, re-purpose the money and move on to more money. take what we can get and there are dollars we can get quickly

christmas is coming. >> not if mitch mcconnell has anything to do with it. >> let's throw it back to caroline, let's talk about what you think needs to be prioritized if there is going to be some sort of a deal that's put on the table, what needs to be prioritized, what is the most immediate need >> i think if there's going to be a deal, the most immediate needs are kind of obvious. they are for more of the -- more benefits for small businesses, i think, especially, and more benefits, for instance, extensions of loans and things like that, but also just more generous unemployment benefits, including the unemployment benefits that the c.a.r.e.s act that cover people that are normally eligible for unemployment benefits. i think the obvious thing to do is to just get money into the pockets of people who are otherwise going to go out of business or others going to struggle getting through the winter, and i think that if we

look forward to the new year and the biden administration, i think there are a lot of positive things that they can also do that are sort of small deals around the corner. you know, not necessarily huge deals, but small deals that could improve the situation quite a lot. and that's probably all that they're going to be able to get done, given the makeup of congress and the senate after the beginning of the biden administration >> when you look at the bipartisan deal that's on the table right now, do you think that has a chance of passing or is that a problem because of the money that they have put in for the state and local governments. >> well, that's certainly going to be the sticking point, isn't it, the state and local money. i think it does have a chance of passing, and i think there is reason for there to be money in there for the state and local governments. i think state and local governments are certainly facing a lot of fiscal stress and it is up to the federal government to try to relieve a lot of that fiscal stress but that does appear to be the sticking point,

and i kind of would agree with the -- well, i'm not a politician, i'm an economist i guess i would say i would agree with the point of view that says if you have to take that out, try to make that deal separately, but as i say, i'm not a politician. >> hey, austan, just to keep i in the real world, which i don't know, we've diverged, i think, you're quick to ascribe mcconnell's motivation to the georgia runoff, yet you don't ascribe any of speaker pelosi's intransigent prior to presidential election, you don't ascribe to not giving trump a win before the election, you don't? >> i don't because the deal that was offered, they couldn't make a deal because mitch mcconnell would block it >> okay. all right. >> but, joe, it's good to see you. i enjoy talking to becky >> joe, they passed a bill

>> i know, but they had 1.8 billion. >> so much they passed more than he wanted. >> they had 1.8 billion. >> before we go, joe >> that's rick's point. >> before we go, rick completely made up his story before he completely made up his story when his daughters asked him for anything, he completely meltingmelts. it was a totally made up story about teaching his kids a lesson. >> i always gave them more money. that's the moral of the story. >> that's right, you did, rick >> higher amounts, higher amounts. >> pass it around. >> you just made it up, rick when the daughters asked, you just gave them everything. >> just like the scientific methodologies in california. >> steve, rick, caroline, austan, i want to thank you for your time.

andrew. thanks, becky. that was fascinating i tried to keep my mouth shut given how many mouths were speaking meantime, jim cramer's first take on the trading day ahead. we'll talk to him right after the break, and why goldman sachs just went erub bullish on tesla. we'll break it down. stay tuned, you're watching tesla on cnbc. -- you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

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one of the biggest stock hauls we have gotten in quite some time, perhaps, all subjective, i guess, goldman

sachs upgrading the shares of tesla, raising the 12 month price target to $780 million a share from 455 dom chu joins us now with more on this call hey, dom. >> so for perspective, joe, the fact set consensus estimate for tesla is at $406 so there's got to be upgrades coming or downgrades, depending on how you want to look at the valuation. here's what's driving the call, the battery adoption is accelerating, energy and self-driving businesses could be positive catalysts and they are looking at margin expansion there as well. so three of the bullish reasons why that street high, $780 price target has come into play. now tesla shares over the last year, yeah, i mean 780% moved in just over the course of the last one-year period with a lot of that coming in just the last six to nine months or so for tesla if you look at the way tesla is shaping up, it's currently at these valuations, a roughly $530 billion company just to put that in some perspective, apple,

$2.1 trillion would be the biggest rank up in the s&p, it still is microsoft at 1.62 trillion the number 2, amazon is at number 3 at 1.6 trillion. at a $530 billion valuation, it would be number 7 on that berks hathaway now and above visa. so put that all in perspective, tesla shares really would have a huge impact on the s&p 500 if they get even close to that goldman call at 780 bucks. it is not just tesla in the news, also big news out of chevron and oil major side of things, chevron cut the capital spending plans for the year 2022 to 25 to now 14 to $16 billion per year from a prior 19 and $22 billion. now, in the elease, chevron's ceo, michael worth, basically said that, quote, chevron is in a different place than others in our industry we maintained consistent financial priorities starting with our firm commitment to the dividend, per our earlier conversation and we took swift early action

at the beginning of the pandemic, to prudently allocate capital, reduce costs and protect our industry leading balance sheet. so, joe, i guess it comes down to the notion that when it comes to companies, some of them really do want to do whatever it takes to preserve that dividend. i'll send things back over to you, joe >> dom, thanks coming up, three surprising, three very surprising market stats you need to hear, including what a superstrong november may mean for the final month of the year. stay ted "squawk box" is coming right back

welcome back to "squawk" want to get to cnbc headquarters where jim cramer joins us now. i'm curious what you think about what is happening again, we keep talking tesla, saw the goldman sachs note, i'm also curious what you think about the pressure on the salesforce stock. >> tesla, what are you going to do we were saying earlier, you can downgrade it or get forced into upgrading, find new ways to do it, margin expansion, the battery. i felt the guy's pain. i did. i said last night, i said, geez, it must hurt him so much

i know david is going to talk about it it is a tough situation to upgrade up here. the salesforce, i've been going over this salesforce deal over and over again i think the big miss that people don't get is that slack had a great quarter. and it took a lot of customers, so really wasn't as dangerous as people are saying, listen, jon fortt this morning came out on the bull side, gave both cases, which is terrific, i also have to say that remember what was done when mulesoft was announced, it looked like that was one where he announced on our show, on "squawk box," holy cow, they're paying way too much for that and tableau, i had adam slipski on a bunch of times, i said, adam, how much is your company really worth you put these things together and you end up being an alliance that somewhat is against microsoft. we have frank sluitman from snowflake. it fits in well with what salesforce was saying and

mentions that as a large client. i think you have to do it. i think mark can make three times the sales currently, three times the sales of what i see currently being done by slack. and don't forget, slack has that interesting case against microsoft that say bungling case, not unlike 1999. i think the deal is a good one, will turn into a great one i'm surprised people aren't looking at how great slack has done versus even a year ago. just doesn't even seem to matter to people. very good keynotes yesterday at salesforce at their dream force. i come out positive. >> dream force, right. >> yeah. >> we'll see you and -- >> andrew, why don't you jump in in the cacophony we had about the stimulus >> i was just -- you probably know my views. you probably know my views already. >> i love you. >> we'll do those views tomorrow maybe. but we have a final guest and we

have a hard break coming up so we can get to jim and the gang in a moment. three market stats that may surprise you, and perhaps enrich you, ryan dietrich is here, senior market strategist at lpl financial research ryan, first, want to talk about the markets and how they tend to fare six to 12 months down the road when november gains are greater than 10% as they were this year. what happens >> that's right, andrew. you hear -- we have a 10% gain last month, people think, oh, maybe it is bearish, we have gone up too far, too fast. if you look back at market history, though, you have a pullback, 6 to 12 months later, returns are strong six months later, up double digits on average and you're higher more than 80% of the time 12 months later, similar let's not forget this the last time we had greater than 10% monthly gain was in april, good gain since then. and the last little stat for this, this is the -- this is the second time ever we had two separate months gain 10% during the same calendar year, the only

other time that has ever happened, 1982 kicked off a pretty good bull market. we're not necessarily predicting that, we think the market is telling us something, 6 to 12 months from now, the action we saw in november is really a strong sign and likely means more gains ahead >> okay, give me, though, let's play shorter term, let's play december, what do we think is going to happen here, santa claus rally or not >> maybe not we all know december is a strong month, up 1.5% on average, second strongest month of the year, higher, more likely than any other month. when you have a really big november, like we just did, november can actually steal from santa claus. you have a 10% gain like we just did, december is actually down on average so we make it make sense, feel good time of the year, people are really optimistic. everybody is bullish now so maybe there is a contrarian little weakness here, but don't forget, this is an election year, no one will forget that,

and the s&p has been down in december during an election year once, 1984 all these things swirling. at the end of the day, the big rally in november makes sense, maybe december is weaker than people think. >> putting coal in my stocking there. final stat, we have 20 seconds. >> well, let's still believe in santa, though. it is going to be a good year. final thing, terrible year for a lot of reasons, s&p down 30% for the year back in march we all remember that this will be the first year in history in all likelihood that stocks finish higher after being down 30% at one point. that's a real positive thing to be feeling for from where we were in march. >> okay. ryan, great to see you, appreciate you making us all a little smarter this morning with some data to put behind all of this meantime, we'll take a quick final check on the markets, about half an hour now before they open. dow looks like it would open up 17 points higher nasdaq, up 17 points

s&p 500 open marginally down, floating around for just a little bit bitcoin before we go, that's still a high flyer, over 19,000. make sure you join us tomorrow "squawk on the street" begins right now. good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street" i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber. futures trying to claw thr way into the green after the 28th record close of the year jobless claims come down a touch, covid deaths do set a new record, and we got news on snowflake, crowd strike, chevron, kroger and more our road map begins with markets and new highs. goldman says that a fiscal relief deal is now more likely >> and there are going to be some job cuts at 3m. the pandemic facing a global restructuring for that dow component. and finally, just reading through the note from goldma