>> i'm using jets. i believe there's going to be good momentum in the first half of the year. >> a little disrespect. >> guys, names only. courtney, you're up first, steve weiss and then surat. >> i'm sticking with dri you said names only. >> vulcan materials, vmc. >> hurry up, surat. >> jpmorgan. >> all right good stuff thank you, the delay makes that hard thanks, guys "the exchange" is now. scott, applying the whip here to bring them home across the finish line. good afternoon, everybody. welcome to "the exchange in for kelly evans, i'm tyler mathisen a tug-of-war between virus worries and virus relief a new covid-19 variant abroad and stocks are making a comeback with the dow now surging ever so slightly into positive territory. it happened just moments ago the question is where do we go

from here? plus, a closer look at what's in that latest round of stimulus. how quickly people in businesses could see relief, and what it may mean for the recovery. and from beaker to bulk production, we check in with one company that makes components for the vaccine on how that rollout is going can they keep pace with demand we begin though today with the markets and mr. santoli. mike >> reporter: tyler, thank you very much. been dip buying active since the open really a modest decline in the s&p right now, a little more than half a percent. the low in the morning was about 36.36 so in the morning we swept away most of december's gains. back to late november levels here we are the dow a little bit green. check out the dow futures overnight. we did have that selloff originating in europe. some of these concerns about a new coronavirus strain you can see right around 6:00 a.m. we bottomed out that the decline happened mostly around the european open and we've fought our way back. it should be noted that the dow

is really benefiting today from jpmorgan, goldman sachs and nike all three of those together are creating about 200 points of upside support for the dow, and take a look at the bank stocks they are reacting to friday's somewhat surprising news that the fed would allow them to restart share repurchases in limited amounts, and you can see that this was not really expected the market was a little bit wrong-foot that was the news of the fed you popped right at the close the other day on friday, and we're carrying through that strength today still a little bit of a value tilt working against the recovery tes larks its first day as a member of the s&p 500. it's down 5%, but keep in mind it had a huge pop right into the close, so 655 is where it closed on thursday, so we're still trading above thursday's levels and this is on a quarter to date basis. minimizes the angle of the sentiment. that's 54%, tyler, are just since september 30th. >> mike, thank you very much mike santoli stocks staging that major midday comeback after initially dropping on concerns of a new strain of coronavirus, so is

today's reversal a good sign for the resilience of this record rally? joining us now with more on market risks and his 2021 investment playbook is jim mcdonald, chief investment strategist at northern trust what kind of year do you see ahead, jim >> it's going to be a year, tyler, marked by very strong economic recovery in the second half and the first half might be a little choppier as you see a rise in cases, a rise in hospitalizations battling the increase in vaccination. all of this will be happening in a context where stocks and risk assets like credit are going to grow into the valuations that have been realized through a tremendous rally since march, so we think it will be a reasonable year for risk-taking, and the economic picture looks to be the most clear that we've seen in quite some time. >> so it sounds to me like you're saying it's going to be an okay year, but not as good a year in terms of returns for the s&p say as 2020 has been.

>> correct the that would be a positive upside surprise. we've got valuations right now that have priced in a lot of this recovery. i think that's probably the biggest thing that could constrain the returns. we're not going to see a negative impulse from monetary policy fiscal will be there the one big uncertainty that remains, and it really isn't getting a lot of attention is the georgia senate runoff which is january 5th and has the potential to reverse the positive election trade that occurred after the divided government result in november, so that is one major issue that's got to be resolved early in the year and that will help set the tone for four years. >> in other words, if the two georgia seats turn to the democrat side, that would take away the premium that's been built in that there will be divided government and that that could be bad for markets. >> i think that's true we thought this was the most

positive scenario, the divided government scenario. the second most likely and constructive was a democratic sweep with the very small senate majority thinking they will be constrained in spending and if they do have 50 seats plus the vice president they can't do taxes and spending through the reconciliation process the final point though is you've really got to put this into context. the vaccines i think have been as big of a positive catalyst for risk-taking. if you look at the movement in november, the vaccines really gave a second boost to the rally that started with the election. >> among the sectors you like in equities, and i want to get to bonds in just a minute, are global infrastructure and global real estate. what kinds of companies are you talking about there in global infrastructure are you talking about large engineering companies, the aggregate companies, what? >> sure. so a lot of it talk-oriented kind of companies, whether it's

airports or it's ports or it's utilities that make money on a recurring basis and ifinflatio comes back they will get some benefit. they have also been particularly hurt by the pandemic, and so they will see a nice rebound with economic recovery coming back they were not great performers in 2020, and we expect them to be better performers in 2021. >> how many -- >> the local risk assets, one of our themes in risk-taking going into 2021 is some. lower risk risk assets including higher yield bonds which which they could deliver comparable return toke tis with less measurable risk. >> i want to turn back to ports and airport companies. which ones are public? i thought most of them were government-owned or owned by an authority, an operating authority like had a port authority in new york? >> sure, definitely. this is a global phenomenon and it's a list of global stocks

that comprise the globalist and infrastructure market so it's not just airports, and it's also things like utilities that have seen a downturn in demand and we'll see some nice improvements as the economy rebounds startling in the middle part of this year. >> global real estate. >> what are you talking about there and why are you persuaded that it may have a pop because all i see as i drive around my lillo narrow slice of the world are for rent signs in office and retail. >> global real estate, somewhat a globalist and infrastructure is a somewhat diversified portfolio of companies that range from office to retail to industrial and distribution. one point of clarification, we are neutral global estate into 2021 so we're not making a cop structive move there, but what i would say it's not a secret to the public markets that those

stocks in retail and in the office component have had some real pressure, so those stocks have sold off considerably, but we're equal weight global real estate coming into 2021. >> jim, thanks very much the have a good holiday. >> like wise. >> good to see you again. meanwhile, tracking the latest developments in the fight against covid-19, and it's a tale of kind of two countries. here at home another shot in the arm for the americans, but as the first shipments of moderna's coronavirus vaccine roll out today on their way to frontline health care workers and long-term care patients. it is the second vaccine to receive emergency use authorization from the fda after pfizer's was also approved about a week ago, but concerns across the pond as dozens of countries suspend travel to and from the uk after a new variant of covid-19 is found to be circulating there. prime minister boris johnson placing strict lockdowns in london and parts of southeast

england as virus cases continue to strike. the for more -- spike, you should say for more let's welcome in our own meg tirrell and meg i'll start off with you will more people get the moderna vaccine in this country or the pfizer vaccine in this country >> well, as of right now the supply deals that we've struck, the u.s. has bought 200 million doses of moderna's vaccines and 100 million dose of pfizer's vaccines we know they are working on a deal for an additional 100 million doe million dozes of the pfizer vaccine and we'll have to see how that shakes out. we should have equal availability of the vaccine and every single doze we hope gets used >> when we add 2,900 million, we

get to 300 million but is that enough for 350 million people to be inoculated because it's a two-dose protocol? >> yes, exactly. you know, there are more vaccines that are being tested and developed, of course, from johnson & johnson, and we might get to see their data in january. that's a single-doze vaccine so that would mean more supply right off the bat. astrazeneca and novavax behind that the government do have options to order more from pfizer and moderna as well but the timing when we can get those might push us to the back half of next year. >> dr. rasmussen, before we get to the question of this variant strain or variant in the uk and talk a little bit about that and whether the vaccines work, is 150 million vaccinations in the united states sufficient >> it's really not sufficient. i mean, ideally we'll need to have at least 60%, 70% of the

population getting vaccinated, and 150 million is less than half of the u.s. population. we also need to be thinking about vaccinations for the global population because we are -- we do live in a mobile world, a mobile society, so if people are not safe anywhere, then they are not safe everywhere so we need to be thinking about this in larger longer terms. >> so let's talk about this variant that has been uncovered in england the word is that it transmits more quickly than the original coronavirus. is there data to support that, and is it anymore dangerous as an illness than the original coronavirus? and is there data to support that >> so, the data -- there hasn't been much data released about this this has been decided primarily on epidemilogic data so this variant has become rapidly much more prevalent in southeastern parts of england and southeast

london which suggests it may have some advantage in term of its transmissability in addition to that the government advisory board in the uk cited viral loads being higher in patients who were confirmed to have covid and had this variant, so that may suggest that these patients are actually shedding more virus, but we don't know the mechanism by which this could be more trance missible and don't know for certain that it is this could also be explained by different behaviors and people relaxing the precautions that they are taking intended to reduce transmission. that could also potentially explain the uptick in terms of virulence, we actually don't have any data at all that suggests that this is becoming more virulent if anything, one of the mutations, specifically a deletion in the orc-8 gene of the virus has been associated with reduced virulence, so fortunately this variant does not seem to be more path genic. >> so let me -- so you're basically saying step back a little bit here on this -- on this step back a little bit from the

headlines or from -- and it's not just that boris johnson had a bad hair day, by the way let's go to whether the vaccine -- >> how do you tell >> how could you tell, exactly whether the vaccine, doctor as we have it today will presumably inoculate you against this different variant. that's question one, and is there the possibility because this is a messenger rna-based product, sort of a synthetic product, that we could adjust the vaccine more readily to fight this new variant than we might with a more conventional vaccine. you see what i'm driving at? >> i do. so to answer question one the answer for that is we don't know that's an urgently -- that's an urgent question in terms of whether the vaccine will work, so there are multiple mutations in this spike protein that the vaccines are developed against, and it's entirely possible that the new variant could be capable

of evading at least some i-month that those vaccines elicit the viral vector vaccines are we combinant and can be easily changed. that's good news if this is a variant that escapes the vaccine they can usually accommodate for that. >> fascinating. >> i think dr. rasmussen gives extremely great perspective as she always does, the idea that this virus would be mutating and i think i've seen from some virologists and ask her to weigh in and make sure she agrees, it would seem like it makes sense, if viruses are going to be mutating for their own survival over time that they could get more transmissible but perhaps less virulent, less likely to kill their hosts dr. rasmussen, is that right, we typically see that with viruses over time? >> we often see, that not always i think that people make the

assumption that viruses are always going to become less path genic. that's not always true if you look at ebola, for example, it hasn't become either more transmissable orless path genic, it's still a very path genic virus, but oftentimes, yes, you're absolutely right if there's selection pressure on a virus it will change so that it can more efficiently infect new hosts and hopefully not kill them before they can get into a new host after that. >> all right. >> we do expect this virus to change doesn't necessarily mean it will change for the worst. >> we have to leave it there meg tirrell and dr. angela rasmussen where i was born at the hospital in georgetown university thanks to both of you. appreciate it. coming up, d.c. has a deal on stimulus. a closer look at what's in it, who is getting it and how fast the relief is coming and it takes a village to produce a vaccine as you surely know al look at one company that makes one component of it, and the stock is up 50% in 2020. the ceo of avantor will join us

with what production has been like now that production sunday way. see you in two minutes this is decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. with what production has been

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mnuchin telling cnbc people will see money soon the. >> the good news is this is a very, very fast way of getting money into the economy, and, again, let me emphasize, that people are going to see this money the beginning of next week >> the beginning of next week. so how much money can people expect, and what else is in the deal for that lets bring in ylan mui? >> reporter: well, the total cost of the second round of checks will be $166 billion. each adult will get $600 half the amount that they got during the first round of stimulus, but each kid will also get $600 and that's $100 more than they got before the payments would phase out for individuals making $75 a yore or for couples that make $150,000, and though are the same parameters as last time. this being aage also provides another $300 a week boost in federal jobless benefits through

mid-march. it also extends and expands unemployment benefits and that's important because those were supposed to run out at the end of the week impacting as many as 12 million americans there's also $325 billion for small businesses, including another round of ppp and $15 billion dedicated for live entertainment venues and for move theaters. the airlines get $15 billion and amtrak also gets $1billion now, so many people and businesses have been waiting months and months for this type of relief, but lawmakers have yet to release the final checks of the bill. we understand that there are some printer issues and some file uploadingissues as i am told this, bill will be several thousand pages long. still, the house is expected to vote on it today the senate says it wants to pass it as soon as possible, but, tyler this, process could still take a couple of days to play out, and that could expact exactly when the checks are hitting had the bank accounts. >> ylan mui reporting from the

d.c. area. thousands of pages long, so how will this deal set us up for the rest of the recovery the way it is? let's bring in james pethokoukis at the american enterprise institute and stephanie mill her, managing director of fiscal note markets james, let mow start with you. is this an appetizer for a main course that might come in 2021 or another round of appetizer stimulus next year >> i would think that this is more of the main entre, and that to use that metaphor, 2021 may see maybe some side dishes i think it's going to be very hard, even if democrats win those two georgia senate seats which we've been talking about, to get a lot more money than that in 2021 certainly democrats wanted more, particularly not in this bill is the maybe $200 billion or more for state and local governments.

that didn't happen democrats would like to try to get that in 2021 i anywhere that's going to be very, very difficult, but the thing is a lot will be happening in 2021 so democrats want that state and local government money. they are going to want infrastructure for biden they are going to want the unemployment benefits extended after march. things republicans want. still want that liability shield they still want the trump tax cuts extend it had so what we may see in 2021 is all those things perhaps coming together and to use a metaphor as a big fiscal stew. i mean, a i think that could happen. >> so you see the parameters of the deal-make process that might take place in 2021 on the one hand gop wanting liability protection for the trump tax cuts and the democrats want be infrastructure and -- and other monies stephanie, whatever happened to the $2 trillion plus that was part of the deal talk back before the election?

did both sides just fumble the ball here? >> well, i love that we could go even further back in late spring it was $3.5 trillion. >> yeah. >> so it keeps shrinking, and so to your question i think and to the point of the conversation is are we going to ever actually have that much spending, and the momentum last march taking us back months ago when the cares act passed to me felt like, wow, we're going to be getting these huge potential trilliondollar stimulus packages like every six to eight weeks, kind of we have to throw money at the problem. we have to solve the problem in late march and since then it has become much more mesh urksd and i'm looking at a tweet right now from alexandria ocasio-cortez, one of the most progressive members of the house, being a little critical that this bill as a total package is $2.5

trillion and she hasn't seen the text yet, members haven't seen the text yet and and they are supposed to vote on it today if this is second biggest bill in history and we haven't seen at text and that's a problem the big price tag is not just like an easy thing for all dems to get behind and i think some of the nuance of how tightly the majorities are going to be in the new year as jimmy was saying are spot on. >> yeah. i mean, there's been, jim, a lot of criticism over the year about bills that nobody has read that gets passed, and this is going to clearly be one of them because you can't -- i took evelyn wood, but you can't speed read that fast but let me go -- >> that's longer than a stephen king novel. >> my goodness, yes, longest than obama's memoir for goodness sake so let's go back to that idea. right before the election both sides were talking about i forgot whether it was 1.2 of trillion on the gop side and 2.2 on the democratic side was it simply that both sides

couldn't allow the other to claim success, is that why those numbers melted away and there was no pre-election deal >> well, i hate to be cynical, but income washington, d.c. that's always a good baseline, and i don't think it's crazy to assume that no one wanted to give anybody else any victories before that election but beyond that republicans certainly had i think a genuine skepticism from their point of view that we needed any kind of stimulus package, anywhere near the size of what democrats were talking about. they were concerned that those unemployment benefits would actually keep people from looking for jobs they felt the economy was actually bouncing back quite nicely, so i think from their perspective there were real concerns among republicans whether we needed a stimulus bill anywhere near the size the democrats were talking about. >> and the president was speaking out in favor of two different numbers. >> what mish mcconnell thought

and the president thought were two different things. >> thanks both have a good holiday. >> thank you. coming cup, a holiday and vaccine shipping rush. ups and fedex facing a new set of challenges. a look at what's ahead for shippers. and goldmas ren'the big risks to the market. we'll talk about that next students of color typically do not have access to high quality computer science and stem education. ♪ 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.

welcome back to "the exchange," everybody right now the markets are a little bit mixed as you see the dow industrials have moved up by a high pressure

system over the ohio valley, and that is lifting the dow as you can see there. at one point the dow was down 423. what's leading the way well, financials to the extent that anything is leading the way, up about 1.5% the rest of the sergeantors are down energy and utilities. there's a low pressure system pushing them down over the rockies, okay, so the two biggest lag yards, the big winner was the financials up 1% as rementioned some of the movers this hour lockheed martin inninging a $4.4 billion deal to buy aerojet rocketdyne and lockheed going to upping up its offerings and aerojet up more than 24% on the session as you can see right there. nike helping to lead the dow out of the red and hitting a record high on the heels of its strong second quarter earnings. the athletic apparel maker beat on the top and bottom lines and

boosted guidance nike is up better than 5% at 144. rent acenter also higher after acquiring a lease-to-own fintech company as it works to grow its virtual presence shares of rent acenter are currently up almost 10% at 38 and change let's go to sue herera for a news update. hey, sue. >> hello, ty good to see you. as americans continue to work from home and avoid travel in october they drove less. u.s. drivers logged 259 billion miles in october that's according to the u.s. transportation department, but that is down 25 billion miles over the same month last year. as covid tensions spread due to the recently discovered variant, serbia is one few european countries to open its ski resorts. authorities are putting in place restrictions including allowing its visitors to only use restaurants and cafes that are on the resort.

and in california, governor gavin newsom is karen teenage again after coming in contact with an aide who has tested positive this as much of his state remains under a stay-at-home order. it's second time in a month that newsom has had to quarantine after a potential exposure to covid-19 you are up to date that's the news update, ty back to you. >> thanks very much. the with stocks under pressure earlier today, goldman sachs seized three potential big market risks ahead hand wild goldman is maintaining its 4,300 s&p target equity strategy david costen says multiple factors including a rise in inflation and interest rates could derail the bullish thesis you can read the firm's other two market risks at cnbc.com/pro still ahead, we will get a check on the beaten down travel stocks as europe deals with a new covid varian

moderna's vaccine starts to roll out and ship remembers dealing with logistical nightmares on multiple fronts. it's been bumpy so far, folks, and the spac train keeps chucking along how social capital open door is doing on the first day of trading. "the exchange" will be right back

all right. welcome back to "the, change," everybody. markets are a little bit lower today as you see right there the industrials, however, the exception ever so slightly higher they are well, i would say, off their lows with the dow down now -- down 400-plus points at its lowest let's drill down on some individual stock stories we're following today. seema mody has a look at the beaten down travel sector. frank holland is covering the logistics of the moderna vaccine romout -- rollout and julia boorstin looking at another spac deal, this time real estate company open door which started trading today. seema, you get to go first. >> the new reports of the coronavirus strain, asia issues

a travel ban germany, france, india, among nations suspending air travel from the uk in an effort to keep this new strain from spreading and countries like belgium that connect with brightan via a tunnel are banning all passenger travel the u.s. is not following suit i reached out to the state department to see if they would change that and am awaiting a response hotel occupancy been on the decline, right around 24% compared to 38% we're at here in the u.s., but these restrictions in general, they are seen as a setback for pretty much all parts of the travel story. hotels, online travel, operators, even the cruise lines are trading down, but they are not -- they are not down as much as they were earlier today, norwegian down by as much as 4%. ty >> a quick question about airbnb which has not join the other travel stocks today. what's going on? >> yeah. i was looking at that chart today, tyler looking at where it's traded

since going public on december 10th it priced at $68 and opened at 146 and since then it's sort of had an interesting ride so far today the stock was down as much as 6% in early trade and now it's rallying here, up as much as 8%, and i think one question, tyler, investors are trying to figure out is where do you place airbnb is it in the travel bucket or in the work-from-home bucket? will it accelerate this demand for home rentals if this virus continues to be a concern going into 2021 or for the foreseeable future, but i think that seems to be one question that investors are still trying to answer. >> seema, thanks very much let's check on the shippers now, both fedex and-ups are lower today. they are facing logistical challenges with the rollout of moderna's vaccine, but those aren't the only hurdles they are dealing with just four days ahead of christmas let's get to frank holland for that story hi, frank. >> hey, good afternoon, tyler. nearly 6 million dozes of

moderna's vaccine will be shipped to nearly 3,300 sites here in the u.s. this week at at exact same time both fedex and ups will ship another 2 million dozes of the pfizer vaccine. there's a potential storm in the midwest and east could create more challenges. fedex says vaccines get special treatment even during christmas week and ups is preparing for the worst possible weather to ensure vaccine delivery. >> we're sorting these in an isolated location so that we can maintain that comprehensive visibility and the prioritization that goes along with the vaccine shipments. >> we're overlapping weather maps on top of that have to make sure that we can have contingencies available, and we do have double and triple redundancy in some cases in case we have to move. >> during the nor'easter last week on-time delivery for fedex and ups fell slightly. anything above 95% is good anything below not so much the firm that compiles this data, they estimate as many as

3.5 million packages could be delayed by a day or more during christmas week tyler, back over to you. >> so if i order something today i'm probably not going to get it by christmas, am i >> you know, that's a great question the carriers have definitely pushed back on the idea that there's a definite deadline. really depends on how much you're willing to pay. if you're willing to pay for the overnight yes you can still get it by christmas but most of us like to get the cheapest shipping cost that we can because we want to spend money on our gifts. >> i remember years ago spending $45 to ship an item that was worth about 10 but when you have to do it you do it frank holland in memphis, thank you, man. >> if you need more sizes, i can get them to you. >> good. social capital's open door is having a rough first day of trading, and let's drill down on the newest spac on the block with julia boorstin. spac-land, julia, take it away. >> well, tyler, open door technologies starting to trade

today under the ticker open after merging with another spac and raising $1 billion with this ipo. now, the company is a digital platform for buying and selling homes. it makes cash offers to home openers and then often fixes up houses and resells them charging a percentage fee which is a far simpler model than traditional real estate brokers. the company operates in 21 markets. the companization its 2019 revenue was $4.7 billion now, ceo eric wu says this ipo is a step in the right path says the ipo will accelerate its plans to expand nationwide and to develop some new product offerings. now, some of the companies' investors include softbank, began electric and ggb capital the stock first began trading 6.7% higher than social capital's last close but now as you can see it's up about 1.5%

tyler. >> they say they have $4.7 billion in revenues and they have sold 10 billion in homes. that's a -- >> yes, tyler. >> explain that one. >> so -- so the things that they take a percentage fee, so you have to look at whether or not they are generating revenue from each how is that they are buying and selling and in terms of those homes, the $10 billion worth of homes, $4.7 billion in revenue and, of course, some of that revenue does, of course, go to the homeowners. >> i got it. >> okay. thanks, julia, appreciate it. >> and still ahead, moerderna a pfizer are getting most of the glory for the covid vaccines, but there are lots of other companies involved in the whole production chain we'll talk to the ceo of a key player and the impact that the inave had on operations next "the exchange" returns right after this

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welcome back the big rollout of moderna's vaccine is sunday way joining pfizer in the fight against covid-19 the effort to bring these vaccines to the public have mobilized countless resources, companies and people and run of them is avantor which provides products to support almost all of operation warp speed's 500 vaccine and therapy candidates that stock is up over 300% from its year low with us now is michael stubblefield, ceo and president of avantor michael, welcome the am i pronouncing the company's name correctly i'm ashamed if i didn't, but you tell me. >> no, avantor, that's correct. >> avantor, fantastic. for those who aren't familiar with avantor which came public about a year or so ago, am i correct on that? >> yeah. we went public in may of last year, and it's been a pretty reexciting ride since then.

>> i'm sure it has been, and you're trading ahead of where you were then. not all ipos can say that obviously. for those who don't know the company, what do you do in the supply chain what do you supply that makes your company so important to the therapeutics and the vaccines that we're going to benefit from >> yeah, tyler, thanks for giving us the opportunity to highlight what we do we're really proud of the role we're playing in this pandemic we'll be providing mission critical products all along the pipeline to support testing as well as vaccine development and therapy development, and then ultimately we'll be providing ingredients that are used in the production of these -- of these vaccines. >> so give me an example without going too technical on a product that is critical to either the moderna vaccine or the pfizer vaccine, a solution, a suspension, what is it that -- that i can wrap my head around

>> yeah. so relative to like the mrna technology which underpins the pfizer and moderna vaccines, i think we've all become experts in that work flow and perhaps to things like lipid nano particles of which there are several that are important to delivering, you know, that vaccine into our bodies, and we would be a producer of some of those lipids. >> i see so a highly, highly technical area did i see in my notes that you have something like 6 million different products, how can that be >> we do we have a very broad portfolio, and, you know, it allows us to support our customers all the way from early phase r & d and process discovery and development all at way through to full-scale manufacturing. we're going to be deeply embedded with our customers every step of the way and not just for covid we're going to be supplying ingredients and products to most

of the biologic therapies that are approved in the market today. >> so, michael, tell us about how the rollout of the vaccine has been going and the production of it from where you sit. have there been any -- any hairballs in the process what's happening >> yeah. so as you can imagine, this process god under way early in the spring actually we've all been planning for this day and we're obviously thrilled of the sight of trucks rolling out of factories with vaccines being distributed but we've all been planning for this day from the very beginning and it takes a lot of collaboration, as you can imagine, given how dynamic the situation has been we've been, you know, providing materials. our model requires that we customize these materials, you know, to be able to provide the functionality that our customers' platforms require so we've been working with our customers really since early spring we stood up a supply chain

controller control tow very early on to see whether they are raw materials or manufacturing capacity or labor constraints, and we've been working steadily to eliminate those constraints, and most of our materials would have, you know, significant lead times for them for the vaccines that they are rolling out today we were probably producing those materials over the last several months, and had those in the hands of our customers as they were starting to ramp their production. >> i assume your customers, when you speak of your customers, you're speaking of large pharmaceutical companies, maybe there are others that you would identify here, but -- but i've got to imagine that you as a component manufacturer and a manufacturer, you're making stuff not knowing whether the drug is going to work or not, so how -- how big a risk is it, and certainly the others were doing the same they were manufacturing product in anticipation of approval, so

there's a risk there, right? >> yeah, there certainly has been risk all along the way here, all the development work was obviously being done at risk, but -- but given the lead times of some of our materials and the customized nature of what we do did, you know, our customers who as you mentioned are the -- are the pharmaceutical companies that are making these vaccines, you know, started placing orders for these, you know, going back well into the third quarter and those -- those orders just given the customized nature that have are going to be delivered and produced regardless of the outcome here hand now that we have a couple of vaccines produced what that brings us is certainty and we can all plan a little bit better in terms of production and what ordering looks like so we can organize our supply chains accordingly. >> can you keep up with demand >> we are. we're investing in capacity that will be phased in throughout the coming year and we're providing volumes here that are unprecedented, but we think the supply chain is in good shape to

be able to keep up. >> michael, thank you so much for your time and the work you're doing. >> thank you have a great day. >> you, too. michael stubblefield of avantor. news of a new covid strain in europe and the dow turning positive but not by too much let's see. what is up about a fifth of a percent, still above 30,000. how to navigate volatility, we have about eight trading days left in 2020 don't forget, you can watch cnbc live on the go using the cnbc app. "the exchange" will be right back digital transformation has failed to take off. because it hasn't removed the endless mundane work we all hate. ♪ ♪ automation can solve that by taking on repetitive tasks for us. unleash your potential.

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welcome back to "the exchange" everybody. stocks wiping out those early losses despite a new covid variant in europe, is this a buy in a dip who wants to talk about sfoks wh -- stocks when we can talk about notre dame football, tyler? >> i think that's true but i think the producer wants to talk

about the markets. these markets are shaking it off today, bud every opportunity up see the s&p 500, lofty levels back above 3,500. just this morning it cracked 3,600. when you look at the vix, it went above 30 for the first time in quite some time that was nearly a 40% move higher, people are repositioningrepositionin and reembracing. i think we have to remain calm and approach this has a buying opportunity just like we have all year here in 2020 as extraordinary as it been >> what does it mean that we could to the last eight trading days of the year, presumably lots of people will are getting out of town, maybe the volume will be lighter. should we prepare with big swings in. >> with certain lockdowns, maybe volume is a little bit bigger.

nonetheless, you have to expect the lighter volumes. but they're still considering with other profits they can take, what other exceptions they can rotate into. look at the themes we talk about some of the themes in 2020. we so those persisting so if it's health care, look at johnson & johnson. look the cvs, it's been a laggard and we're seeing rotation in the laggards home building, home depot and lowes. but look at masco. and we have to look at paypal. there are certain sectors that are interesting in the next couple of days >> paypal owns vem venmo, didn' they >> they do they announced they are now allowing those 350 million users to incorporate crypto bitcoin

currency 20% of the 350 million users are now using bitcoin as payment that's a really big deal you continue to see bitcoin surge. any type of company looking or touching bitcoin will appreciate in 2021. >> what was the biggest game you ever played in when you were playing in notre dame. >> my fresh month yeaman year, state against charlie ward the game of the century, 1993, tyler, it was a big one. >> it should be a big game when they play later this year. that, folks, does it for "the exchange"! i got through it >> and we'll talk to terry lundgren as covid cases ntuecoin to climb just four days before

christmas. i'll join rahel solomon right after this break stock slices.

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moment do the dow wiping out a 400-point drop after a new variant of coronavirus find a new strain. and congress is close to passing a second stimulus bill and a new vaccine. and tesla is down on its first day in the s&p 500 and why is elon musk tweeting all-in on bitcoin. i thought this was the beginning of christmas shopping for me who is going to come out on top and how much will last-minute stimulus checks potentially help "power lunch" starts right now