>> thanks, let's take a final check on the markets you'll see now the futures are indicated higher green arrows across the board with the dow up by 80, s&p up by 9, nasdaq up by 10 we're both off tomorrow, merry christmas, happy holidays, everybody. >> glad we're here glad we're here and healthy and want to stay that way for our families and everybody out there too. been tough. >> happy holidays. >> better days ahead >> it is time for "squawk on the street." good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with morgan brennan and mike santoli cramer and david faber have the morning off. premarket pretty steady, record highs for the nasdaq russell stimulus relief gets a last minute curveball but market is more focused on this government deal for new pfizer vaccines, jobless claims better than expected and core

durables disappointed. road map begins with that deal for pfizer 100 million more doses are set to come by the end of july >> then is a new world for direct listings the end of the traditional ipo. we'll explain that this hour as well >> and finally, tim cook refused a meeting with elon musk three years ago, a potential buyout of tesla. that's those those details are next. >> let's talk about the setup as we get this day and half a day tomorrow before we break for the christmas weekend. typically we head into this period, it is about liquidity and the lack of news that's not the case this morning. >> no. it is not -- we're not worried about the lack of news now there is plenty to chew on and in terms of liquidity, the market has been, you know, kind of just slowly churning at the aggregate index level. it has been sort of consolidating for a while, but then you look at parts of the market racing higher, there is

all this sort of very high energy activity going on in small caps, in alt energy in ipo, recent ipos, it is very interesting market here where if you're an indexer, you feel like the market has been kind of snoozing for a little while right her. and trying to metabolize this news because we did price in a lot of probably the upturn expected in 2021 with that big post election rally. but then you have all this other activity going on that i do think is kind of fascinating, might actually continue to be the story next year. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, you got the dow and the s&p to that point that are, what, about 1% below record highs here in the premarket in terms of where they're poised to open nasdaq poised to open at a fresh record high, to your point about the small caps, russell 2000 is, what, doubled, since that low that we reached in march and then there are these pockets of frothiness. great case in point here is the valuation of car vanya i had more than one conversation

in the last 24 hours around some of the valuation of the tech-focused names carvana, three times the market cap of car max, revenues are four times that of carvana you're seeing these pockets of, i think, for probably longer term investors that have been in this market for some time. maybe a detachment from fundamentals which does seem to be overall kind of the theme given the crazy news cycle we have seen of this year of 2020, carl >> yeah. it brings to mind, you know, this is typically the period where we begin to see predictions for the following year today it is wells fargo, mike. they say that tesla's addition to the s&p marks the beginning of the end of the historic momentum tech run, they compare it to aol, they say ultimately the growth of any price approach is not sustainable you would expect to see more of these big calls coming in the coming days. >> yeah. i think you could also make the

argument that the entry of tesla to the s&p was something like yahoo! going in. very similar price action. it was sort of this ratification that the markets, you know, granting of enormous market value to something that didn't have tremendous profitability, just the kind of wave of the future, finally gets into the index and several months later that was what you had a historic market peak. i think there is something to the fact that the s&p 500 has almost become, you know, the buyer, the incremental marginal buyer of some ofthe massive high concept growth names that have now tremendous market values i don't know if that means the overall market has its destiny already written because of that, but it is a fascinating thing. if you look at the overall alternative energy type space, anything battery, hydrogen, anything that is going to be a charging station, it is going wild right now and it is essentially just kind of taking a little bit of that manic energy that tesla had all the way up and people are looking for next one

fubu tv is the next roku, the next netflix we're going down into the also -- what you could call also rans it is a venture type attitude. there is capital looking for the next massive winners. >> to that point, we're speaking to one of those next ev levered companies to go public, today, actually, xl in the next hour. that being said, also, i got to wonder with tesla joining the s&p 500, there has been a lot of talk ahead of this on what it would do to volatility in that name specifically. and you got to think maybe some of the traders and some of the funds out there that are are going to be seeking or that had traded in and out of tesla keeping it as liquid as it was to sort of chase those gains, not tied to an index that money is going to find some of these other names and maybe perhaps fuel the high flying movements that we have seen as well. meantime, though, we continue to keep our eye on healthcare space, specifically vaccines pfizer and biontech striking an

agreement with the u.s. government to supply an additional 100 doses of the covid-19 vaccine meg tirrell joins us with the details. >> this is another 100 million doses, we should get 70 million doses by the end of june, the end of the second quarter next year 30 million to be delivered by the end of july. this really doubles the number that we have got from pfizer they're paying the same amount for these 100 million they did for the first, almost $2 billion. so this together with the $200 million already agreed upon with moderna would be enough for 200 million americans to be vaccinated by the middle of next year here is how the rollout has been going over the last couple of weeks. they have allocated almost 11 million doses between pfizer and moderna together we are expecting an update today from operation warp speed this afternoon, where we should learn what the allocations are for next week, how much will be going out. as for the pace of actually being able to administer the vaccinations, we are getting data from the cdc, there is a couple of days lag

as of monday morning, and so the numbers must be higher than this now. we just haven't seen from cdc yet. 4.6 million doses have gone out across the united states 614,000 of those administered. but, again, guys, these numbers must be higher as of today because this was two days ago. i'm hitting refresh on the cdc website to see what the new numbers are. but there will be many questions about how quickly can we get these doses out. 20 million are expected to be allocated, you know, by the end of december, and that will go nif into first week of january, that will almost cover the entire top priority group, and then we start to go into the next priority groups, guys. so this happening quickly and in january, we're expecting j&j data as well guys >> yeah, we were crossing our fingers on the j&j part. that's for sure, meg as for that last mile, we're starting to get word now from the cvss and wall green walgrey

need more pharmacy techs and workers to administer the vaccines to the population do you get a sense there will be a labor crunch on last mile? >> yeah, this is something we have been hearing about as people have been preparing for this massive vaccination campaign, how do we find enough people to administer the shots we have been hear and our colleagues have been reporting about needing to find the folks to be able to do this, not just cvs and walgreens, but dentists, ophthalmologists, anybody who could be in a medical, you know, role, helping give these shots because we're talking about trying to vaccinate 260 million americans. the adults who are indicated for these vaccines and that's a lot of people, especially if we're trying to get them done bit middle of next year. >> breathtaking in terps of the logistical operation that we're watching here on a day by day and hour by hour basis, meg. i'm curious, as we see the

vaccines roll out, we talk about securing use of supplies into next year, we see the coronavirus cases, the hospitalizations, the death numbers continue to climb. and to that point, we're seeing more strides it seems on therapeutic side of things too the news from merck about mk-7110 as a treatment for people with severe critical covid-19 do you expect we'll see more of these types of, i guess, therapeutics roll out in a bigger, more meaningful way in the meantime as well >> yeah. the therapeutic area is still important. it is going to take a long time for us to get enough people vaccinated that we can actually stop this pandemic in the meantime, drugs play a hugely important role. that specific drug from merck, it showed in a small trial to be incredibly helpful for people who have severe covid-19 the problem is, it is a difficult drug to make, so merck acquired the company that makes it, and they're trying to ramp up the production. so this is a deal to supply this

to the u.s. government it is very exciting and it hasn't gotten as much attention because of the production issues most likely. there are also the antibody drugs which we heard are not getting used because of the complexity of administering them that's something the u.s. government is trying to draw attention to and the last thing is, of course, these pills for covid that we should hear about from merck and potentially others relatively quickly >> meg, a lot to walk. a lot of pots boiling on one of the final weeks of the year. we'll talk to you later. meg tirrell on the pfizer vaccine development today. we're going to watch the finalization of this stimulus package as the president last night posts a video on twitter blasting that relief bill, saying the direct payments don't go far enough, called it a disgrace he stopped short of saying he would veto it. take a listen. >> the bill they are now planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated. it really is a disgrace.

i am asking congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple i'm also asking congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation. and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a covid relief package and maybe that administration will be me. >> in response to the comments, house democrats say they're going to try to work on a stand alone bill for those direct paymentsunder unanimous consent, but that's a high bar given that any single member can kill it. mike, as for the political ramifications, what does it say about the treasury secretary who not only came on our air to cheer the bill when the deal was reached, but according to treasury, participated in 190 calls about the bill, with the president, with treasury

staffers, with congressional leaders, as it was getting finalized. >> exactly and the final version of this, typical fashion, was kind of nobody got everything they wanted and $600 part of it seemed to come from senate republicans and the treasury secretary very much involved in all this stuff it is very difficult from the market's point of view, if i watch how things traded overnight and into the morning, it is not necessarily saying this deal is off the table, or it is unlikely, it is just, well, now we know what the floor is in terms of the amount of money getting out and who knows maybe there can be a little bit of a boost to it, but it is very difficult to say this was, you know, an assertion of intention of a veto or anything like that. so i think we're here a little bit -- in a fog of not quite sure what the next move is, but also thinking that it is a when, not if question in terms of stimulus it does complicate the issue because a lot of benefits expire and we don't know what the congressional calendar is going to allow. >> we have seen some weaker than

expected or maybe was expected weakening economic data coming out including just this morning. i guess 190 calls, needed to be 191 in terms of this but, i mean, we're talking about a 5600 -- hundred page document. it would be crazy to think there isn't all kinds of pork and you could argue attached or wasteful spending folded up in this the smithsonian mu sams amuseum getting a lot of attention but there are other things that don't have to do with stimulus as it stands in this very moment perhaps the president is not wrong or it makes sense for him to go on the record calling that out. but it does lead to more question marks the other thing in terms of veto, the national defense authorization act that big $740 billion spending defense spending bill that the president has threatened to veto as well, via twitter, inrecent days today is the last day for him to

sign or make an active veto move on that bill, if he doesn't, it goes into effect without his signature tomorrow that's another one to keep an eye on because that is also quite a sum of money and i think it has been 59 years that we have had some sort of ndaa that has moved through. maybe not on time, but that has moved through without a veto so it would be very notable if we did see that and still not exactly a foregone conclusion that congress would override that veto. >> yeah. it is weird. someone pointed out we could see a shutdown, a pocket veto, and a veto override all in the same month. just an amazing period in legislative america as the government would shut down on monday we'll take a break here. pl a new street high on disney. wells goes to 201. what elon musk said about selling to apple yearsgo 'rba ia ment a

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imagine apple buying tesla, elon musk says he once mulled such an idea during the darkest days of the model 3 program, i reached out to tim cook to discuss the possibility of apple acquiring tesla for one-tenth of our current value. he refused to take the meeting as a response to an ongoing twitter chain, morgan. interesting, but not surprising that tim cook might not consider

that seriously >> i guess so. i mean, i don't understand -- i don't understand how you don't at least take a meeting. but i also realize if we're talking about a couple of years ago, things were looking different for elon musk and tesla. perhaps at least from the tesla investor, tesla stalwart fan base if you will, probably the best thing that could have happened, just seeing what happened with this company now and included in the s&p, 700 -- $700 billion market cap, it seems that standing alone and not being acquired by apple has fueled quite -- exactly what we're talking about a few minutes ago, quite the craze when it comes to ev self-driving cars and everything else. >> i don't know what we're supposed to take from this bit of hindsight who perhaps had the greater loss opportunity. what musk is saying is apple, let's say year and a half, two years ago, could have had tesla for $60 billion. at some point, tesla traded to 30, $35 billion market value that shows you what the market thought of the struggles they

were having at the time. there is not a chance that if apple acquired it, it would represent within apple anything like the current value this is being driven by this pure vision of magic and heroism that tesla will save the world behind one man's vision. the other thing is, apple, famously, does not like -- tends not do big acquisitions. six years ago, you would have thought that they were, you know, dancing on steve jobs' grave. the way people reacted to -- for $3 billion, trivial amount of money, you can only imagine what the apple backers would have said about something like this. >> yeah, absolutely. i also got to think some of the exuberance we see in tesla limited though it may be is probably the strides we have seen in spacex as well, quite the gang busters year, couple of years. let's look at how futures are trading as we count down to the opening bell right now we are -- we have seen a reversal from overnight and

actually starting to gain a little bit here in this final 11 minutes before the opening bell. the s&p is poised to open up ten points the dow is poised to open up more than 100. and the nasdaq on pace for a gain of about 5 or 6 points, which would be, actually, a new record high for the nasdaq if we see that in the xtne couple of minutes. in the meantime, "squawk on the street" will be right back stay with us some people have joint pain, plus have high blood pressure. they may not be able to take just anything for pain. that's why doctors recommend tylenol®. it won't raise blood pressure the way

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♪ i'm a fighter and i'm fighting for all students. the s.e.c. is approved the nyse's plan for a new type of direct listing alous companies to issue new shares and sell them directly to the public on first day of trading such a move would allow companies to raise money on the exchange without paying underwriting fees to wall street banks.

>> i think there will be very hard for anyone to argue whether a traditional ipo or spac, this is so elegant, so efficient, it has fewer steps than an ipo. it is wonderful. i do think every single company will move this route >> and to be clear, bill gurley has been one of the best advocates of this type of innovation and he's a big critic of the current ipo price that involves often a big pop on first day, which shows the public demand for shares are greater than the underwriters either aloud for or priced against. and you're not going to get pops, that's either a benefit or a drawback depending how you think about it but the idea that somehow every company is therefore not going to look for an underwritten offering through investment bankers and is going to say i'll take whatever trading range i get on first trade with no lockup, so it is interesting because some of the direct listings without a capital raise as you know have -- it has been

a mixed record in the way they traded initially, such a slack in spotify. >> it is historic in many ways as we watch the nyse on that front and this news that they're going to send some designated marketmakers back to remote working beginning monday because of the spike in new york city. but mike's right, gurley has been an advocate, a loud voice on this, and we'll see how this works. >> absolutely. i just also think it is interesting when we talk about direct listings and new rules that could up end and change that more traditional ipo structure, but in this year of the spac attack, that has been not a direct listing, it has been another way for companies through this reverse merger process to go public without, you know, all those ipo fees and raise money as well. i think that probably has also as we had this conversation contributed to the rise in spacs we have seen too you got to wonder. >> my gosh, yeah eight spacs filed for ipos in

the past 24 hours. >> that's it >> and 12 in the 24 hours before that as axios points out today we'll be back in a minute. don't go anywhere.

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watch disney today it it has come off the high of 174.45 on december 11th. today, wells to 201. i thought that was the street high i was mistaken rosenblat to 210 today from 155. and we're starting to see wells, for example, we think ev on subs is a better metric than ev sales. once these metrics start adjusting, things get more interesting. >> no doubt about it and the market has embraced this for disney it doesn't always do this with a big company that has got a lot of slower growth businesses, where they're just going to capitalize it based on the new, exciting fast growing one. disney has instant scale here and it is interesting to go to enterprise value on subs as

opposed to revenues because they do trail netflix by a lot because they're priced lower and they have a lot of introductory offers out there that's a way of kind of getting around, you know, essentially having that penalization -- the penalty on zdisney. >> it is pretty incredible look at this chart the last three months to look at this chart, we're slightly off the highs, but trading at 170 now, 120 and change back three months ago keep in mind, like some of those parks, for example, are still closed and in the middle of coronavirus as well. i think to your point, even though this seems to be repricing to as a more direct comparable to netflix, you still do have all of these other segments that have been hit hard by coronavirus >> yeah. >> anyway. >> disney is such a great story because we'll watch how the hybrid model works now wonder woman, of course, launches this week, for warner that will tell us more about the

streaming environment and, of course, the vaccine rollout has huge implications for the return of the parks so we'll watch that close lly guys, opening bell in a couple of minutes, couple of seconds, as the nyse brings in excel fleet, celebrating a listing we'll talk to the ceo in the next hour. at the nasdaq, postmaster general louis dejoy and the usps operation santa doing the honors and, morgan, i don't know if you've seen some of the metrics on delivery times this month, it is not good. >> you know i've been watching the metrics on delivery times. let's see, i have it here, i think 86% for the post office now according to ship matrix that number is really rough. that represents millions and millions of packages that are delayed right now. personally in my house, i have two packages that seem to be lost within the usps network now. can't get a tracking hold on them so definitely this could be one of those -- we have seen it before, one of those christmases where some presents don't make it under the tree.

but i do think it is also very notable that u.p.s. and fedex, a lot of reports on this, u.p.s. and fedex have, you know, not taken additional packages over what they agreed to with retailers, which i why i think some of that is flooding into the postal service network right now. taking a look at the markets, it is green it is a sea of green here for the s&p with most names higher carl, back over to you for a deeper read on that. >> yeah, no, 3700 here, mike and morgan mentioned earlier, russell outperforming s&p for the year haven't done that since 2016 i guess how does that carry over to the new year, if at all >> huge question, on a two-year basis, the russell caught up to the s&p. you think about how long we talked about how small caps, and they have done a catch-up, which is amazing the russell 2000 pointing out it

is basically never been more overbought this means it is farther above its 200 day average than it has been pretty much in memory but now used to be the january effect, strickly speaking, was small caps outperforming big caps and the overall market. we have done that. that's in the books. nobody is saying today it stops and it has got to be a giveback in january but a lot of what has happened recently has been exactly that type activity and 3700 you mentioned, it is really fascinating because all month we have been 3700 plus or minus, sell-offs very limited but also not a lot of energy on the upside as we have seen things like russell small cap growth the subsets of small caps have been absolutely flying, up 20 something percent this month, where as the market overall is flat so people are grabbing for the stuff that moves the fastest seems the most exciting and has a lot of catch-up potential. that's where the speculation is

going on as opposed to, let's say, late august, where it was in all the dominant megacap stocks that got the nasdaq 100 to that very sharp peak. >> it is interesting to see energy, the best performing secreta secreta sector in the s&p now. energy catching a bid. that's despite that build, that unexpected build in crude oil inventories that we got in terms of data point after the bell last night and the fact you have economic concerns, the spread of covid, the spread of this potentially more contagious strain of covid that has been weighing on the energy complex and also other economically sensitive commodities like copper as well that seems to be not the case this morning, mike >> absolutely not. it has been day by day had a little bit of a giveback in terms of energy stocks and crude as well. so it has been -- it is interesting that you had these days where traditional fossil fuel-based energy has done

pretty well, alongside all the battery tech and everything else and just to that point, tesla opens up down again today, up by 2% week to day basis down 9.5%. that's just the spillback from the stampede of into that stock into the index inclusion on friday essentially you had people having to sell everything else in the s&p, if you're an index fund to buy tesla and everybody was sort of riding along with that trade we had this giveback and yesterday, you know, apple rallying a fair bit on that report of its own -- its own potential car. it is a little bit of, you know, seemed look a little much given the fact it is a $2.2 trillion company, this is three years away, but that is also sliding pack a little bit, giving back some of yesterday's gain down half a percent, carl. >> yeah, tesla down less than 2% it is the worst performing s&p name at the moment speaking of the ev space, guys, in the commercial space on ev, it has been two steps forward, one step back. today, it is nikola and republic

services who are stopping their work on developing a zero emissions garbage truck back in august republic said let's work on this together, we'll buy 2500 of these once they get developed. longer than expected development time, morgan and longer than expected costs so with that, nikola is down more than 10%. >> yeah. looking at that, it is incredible, the run it had higher this stock and now basically the fall from grace that we have seen in the last couple of weeks, last couple of months, on that name, i mentioned it earlier in the show, and certainly they rang the opening bell, this morning, over at the stock exchange, we have xl on later today to talk about this and they do play in this commercial electric vehicle market as well more focused on plug-ins and basically providing the technology that adapts existing car and truck models for commercial use it will be interesting to hear what that looks like versus some of these other ev companies like

nikola that have been putting that money, that capital intensive business model out there to actually develop their own cars themselves, meek, which i think go backs to the conversation we're having about apple and what self-driving vehicle would actually look like for that company too, given the fact that margins tend to be very tight and takes a lot of money to get there. >> it is -- the one advantage tesla had it a degree, very recently is just open ended access to pretty cheap capital because of what the stock has done and the debt markets. apple can basically match or beat tesla on that front if it wants to go big, we don't know what the scale of the ambitions are, what is fascinating about the nikola story in general is it is such a gold rush mentality and so many upstarts, we seem to have something promising and the established players grabbing at connections to them that you did get gm with a supply deal and got republic services saying we'll think about -- and it turns out that maybe things weren't ready, but there is another one right behind nikola, no doubt about it, that is also

probably in a spac right now that is waiting for some of these joint ventures to be reformed, right? >> yeah. mike, i'm curious to know, broadly, more on the macro front, what you think the next catalyst is going to be. x stimulus drama, is it about the georgia senate runoff? i notice we mentioned wells listed predictions this morning. their view is that mcconnell will keep control, become the most powerful person on the hill as they think probably at least one seat in georgia remains with the gop. >> right no doubt, if you're looking at the next 100 feet of pavement, that's the thing that people are going to fixate on it is a process, it is polling it is something you can handicap, the market can trade off the headlines beforehand, and the predicted odds, so, yes, that will matter i don't think the entire markets macro foundation is necessarily about further waves of stimulus out there. and whether it is a, you know,

50/50 senate, 52/48, whatever it will be, 51/50, you know, if the democrats take both in georgia i think it is much more about the pacing of the vaccine rollouts and just whether we can see evidence that this upturn that is now pretty well priced into the market is showing up. that to me is the big thing. whether it is three or four month wait, dowe run out of some patience meantime as parts of the market run so hot and the credit markets are so strong, it is keeping things together, but it is without that sort of follow through on the macro, housing seems great, but that's not really an incremental catalyst we have known it is great for months now. >> inventory has been so tight, even before we had this pandemic hit, something diana olick reported on since at least last year i wanted to mention, xl fleet, which we were just talking about, in its first day of trading now, as a public company, reverse merger through the spac is now up about 7, almost 8%. again, we'll be talking to their

founder in a little while. the other thing to watch, though, i would think, mike, is going to be this dollar, the u.s. dollar. it is just that chart has been incredible, just to watch the drop in the u.s. dollar and what that is going to mean as we come to 2021, amid all of this stimulus and, yes, i realize there is questions about how much more fiscal stimulus we get and what that means from a fed stand point as well. the incredible weakening you think that has been something that continues to add a floor under some of these commodity prices as well and, of course, the run we have seen in bitcoin of late. >> has a very feeble bounce. it is down another half a percent or so today. it is just kind of bumping along those multiyear lows it is very much fits in with the overall story of risk appetite high, liquidity high, people willing to go far afield to find things to invest in. but also the treasury market is fascinating. it is it has no give to it, even as we had disappointments on the economic front, the ten-year

yield, modest positive surprise on unemployment claims, but not really material. it seems as if there is a real uptrend in place so far, with treasury so right now, it is a very harmonious story, the markets seem to be telling about cyclical upturn next year, globally and in the u.s. and we're kind of priced for it at this point. >> and that dove tails back to the housing conversation too you can get a 30-year fixed mortgage for less than 3% now. it is incredible carl >> yeah. guys, 2s, 10s, steepest since february of '18. we got a very brief record high on the nasdaq and the russell. let's get to bob pisani. hey, bob >> good morning, guys. yield curve steepening that's been a big help to the banks recently, friday announcements really helping as well modest upside today, 4-1 advancing to declining stocks at the open take a look at the sectors little more -- there is your

ten-year note. see that moving up like that, you get over .9 there, people start paying attention banks up too on that energy stocks, modestly on the upside they have been laggards, these cyclical names for the last few days, industrials as well, they're modestly on the upside and the more growth oriented technology and consumer discretionary lagging a little bit. what people keep buying every single day and i sound like a broken record talking about these thematic tech etfs, every day, clean energy and solar stocks and 3-d printing and lithium battery etfs and gaming etfs, people love buying these, creations of these etfs this year have been titanic, beginning about may, we saw real big movements. a lot of money moving around the sectors. we're not quite in fourth quarter earnings season, but it is starting. i'm a little concerned by what i'm starting to see here it seems a little cautious remember what happened, q2 and

q3, huge beats for everybody and we saw rising numbers and positive commentary. q4 and q1 may be more cautious because of the fact we're entering this covid winter for the next four, five months where we don't really know what's going on it seems like activity might be slow down. i think car max yesterday had good earnings, but disappointing comp sales and december was tracking down for them so there is a little bit of an early warning sign here is another one. we had 13 companies reporting, these are the early reports, they have november quarter ending, they have been beating 13 companies, lenard, this time last quarter they were beating by 28% the beats were huge in the second and third quarter these beats are much, much more modest that's a second warning sign that we're seeing out there. number three, if you look at what the earnings season is going to be, i would pay a lot of attention to some of these consumer names that have come out early. there say bunch that still have

a november ending quarter, they'll report the week of january 4th. so bed, bath and beyond, constellation brands and walgreens, conagra, carnival, micron, not a consumer name, but pay attention to what those companies have to say about the november quarter and comment on december we'll see what's going on there. delta reporting also and we kick off on the 15th with jpmorgan and citigroup, the traditional start of earnings season overall one thing i want to point out, mike mentioned this, growth is beating value. here is another data point that indicates people are still nervous. a flea back to growth after a brief value outperformance, a couple of months ago s&p growth has been beating s&p value. small cap growth is beating s&p small cap value by a small point as well. small cap in general having a fabulous month overall just about the comments on the nyse allowing direct listings with a capital race. great for issuers, of course

more direct listings, i think, is good. there is some questions about the lockup periods for a lot of these direct listings. you'll find that to be an issue. remember something, it doesn't matter, these stocks are going to be treated as ipos. they're going to go into the ipo etf. investors overall should be fairly indifferent because people are going to be buying them in that manner through these ipo etfs that is what will matter it is about the after market returns, some of these are done really well, direct listings, palantir has others like spotify and slack they took a longer time to get up there more public ownership, it is a good thing in general. morgan, back to you. >> thanks, bob wee conte key context there. the ata truck tonnage index for november rose 3.7% after a big 5% drop in october they're warning that it is going to be choppy and some of the seasonal patterns with he see in trucking which is an early indicator for economic growth more broadly is not following

trends, so it is going to be freight flows is going to be a key one to continue to watch in terms of where we're at with the economic picture here. all right, over to rick santelli for a look at the bond report as well rick >> good morning, morgan. well, things are hot, hot, hot in the sovereign debt market remember, pretty much all central banks are in the same camp, begins with a big s for stimulative. and you see all the sovereign debt moving together they're not at the same level, but the patterns certainly are very similar look at intraday of ten-year notes, hovering at 96 base points, getting close to challenging the highest levels since the covid pandemic hit now, look, bund yields, minus 53, they zoom in as well so are the gilts in the uk at 27 all of these patterns are similar and i think they really do underscore that for all practical purposes outside of headlines and there can be big headline risk going into year end, that we are going to see

many of the longs looking for lower rates capitulate and either liquidate by selling or new shorts go in because the big thing for 2021 is going to be ad, after distribution of covid, how are interest rates going to react and how are central ranks going to try to control interest rates. look at one-week of 10s. you can see we zoomed in the mid-90s like we have almost every other day. look at bunds for one week same exact pattern, trying to get into the midminus 50s, minus 55, minus 54 the key is going to be how they look on the close. any type of close in ten-year u.s. above 97 or in bunds with a number smaller, less negative than minus 53 is going to have some follow through. finally, we have been talking about the yield curve and heard many, mike santoli, carl, bob pisani, look at the yield curve. it goes back to the spring of 2018 since it has been as steep as it has, just about 84 basis points but think about all the extremes, going to the spring of

2018 whether it is the strength in the euro versus the dollar, the weakness in the dollar index, alls they all these go to the same point here is the dollar index from last thursday, lowest close in 31 months, and that close was 8982 intraday low i believe was 8973. we are a half cent away from that that pretty much says it all mike, back to you. >> it sure does. thank you very much. as we head to a break, another look at the markets, early in today's trading, a little bit of a slightly mixed picture there, the nasdaq gave up its early gain, down one third of 1% s&p 500 right at that 3700 mark. the dow outperforming on the arthgsp by one half a percent to we'll be right back.

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>> a jaw dropping number with fewer people traveling, hotels struggling. the average occupancy rate has fallen to 38% compared to 60% this time last year. now getting close to hitting a milestone, nearly 1 billion rooms. chicago, houston, more than half of hotels financed through commercial mortgage-backed securities are delinquent. in new york, several hotels have permanently shut their doors in north carolina, saying he's not only dealing with empty rooms but a lack of pricing power. >> we have an average rate of $150 and now the rate goes down

to $99 to $100 we are talking one-third of revenue displaced there. >> he doesn't see demand returning for another year or so the question is how does the vaccine change the time line ubs has conducted another survey asking how soon from now would you be comfortable traveling or going on vacation. four to six months out that camp has been growing then the request becomes, what choice will a consumer make. a hotel or a rental. will that change with a vaccine and will people want to start using their points and if that has accumulated before covid hit >> that number is staggering the latest of what is happening in the hotel industry right now. a quick check on the markets a quick picture as the nasdaq

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getting some data this week on the number of chain stores in new york city that have closed due to the pandemic. the annual state of the change report 1,100 stores including dua duane reade, starbucks, papyrus have closed. not a surprise for anyone who has walked up the avenue and seen the decimation of retail. new york magazine why we love new york was memorializing many small businesses that are gone it is clear to see how this gets mopped up. we are talking larger companies and how it is looking for mom and pop shops that don't have

the resources. 37% is the number of restaurant and bars alone that didn't expect businesses to survive the next six months without help according to the stat put out. over 110 restaurants and bars were closed for good painful and sad to watch. >> good wednesday morning. welcome to "sqwawk on the street" dow is up 200. that pfizer supply and getting to rick santelli >> our final read, remember, the midmonth read gets to 80.7

80.7 that follows a final read of 86.9 so it is higher. lower than the low three current conditions move from 91.8 down to 90.0 down from 74.7 to 74.6 one year outlook moved up. aggressive and on 5 to 10 year, it remained at 2.5 november read on new home sales. maybe the one area for 2020 has performed admirably. we are expecting 995,000, 841,000. actually quite a big miss. last months 999 turns into 945,000. remember that 1 million mark is where we spent most of 2006 to

give you some perspective. 841,000, we haven't been at that level since june that gives you an idea where we have digressed a bit for more, not like existing home sales in clothings i'm seeing the price still continues to go up $335,300 up over the year it was a pretty big miss month to month sales are still up 28% year over year so 2020 doing better for the builders than in 2019. the problem is in the inventory. incredibly low at a 3.3 month supply now up to a 4.1 month supply

builders had very little to show they had sold so many more homes than they started on, that might have pulled buyers back. buyers might be hitting on the affordability wall and may be worried about supply november is going into the slow down but this is a lot slower than we expected >>. >> we have the latest on the deal >> is the u.s. government is paige almost $200 for these additional 100 million doses the delivery scheduled for 70 million of those by the end of june additional 30 million by the end of july. this brings us to 200 million doses now ordered from pfizer. in terms of the overall supply, this adds to what we have

secured from the 95% efficacy. moderna have already ordered 200 million doses. these are two shots each for moderna by the end of the year including 100 million more from johnson and johnson. that is a one-dose vaccine astrazeneca ordered 300 million. in terms of how quickly, operation warp speed has laid out an aggressive time line. they are expect to send out 20 million by the end of december end ever january, additional 30 million and end of february, additional 50 million. leading to 100 million getting their first shots. many saying that is it a bit

optimistic we do expect that to increase over the coming weeks a meeting today at 3:30 where we expect to hear a lot more. >> joining us this morning to talk more about the vaccine roll out, bill robinson, ceo and multicare system gentlemen, welcome back. always good to see you. >> seems like just the other day. we have about 50 vaccination sites up and running

no problem at all with the staff willing to take the vaccine. it is going extremely well the more vaccines we get, the more we can vaccinate. >> i am delighted in this new relationship between this new deal the more we get, the more we can vaccinate. it is going smoothly up to date, we will have vaccinated more than 10,000 employees alone. >> i'll ask you the same question if you get more supply for the labor and insta fa structure as

well >> as the vaccines start flowing, we'll extend about 17 sites. we are getting another 6,000 doses today or tomorrow. our employees were actually having parties at the vaccination sites. we've been vaccinating not just employees but members of the first responder's community. into the arms of employees and 25% into the arms of first responders >> you mentioned the staff is skrieted about getting, have you had any issues getting these products done. all of these are working

together in a collective way here taking responsibility to vaccinate the public in long island everything is positive and up beat even though we have seen an up tick and despite that, we are looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. >> at the moment, it could not be going more smoothly >> what are you seeing within your hospital system right now in terms of those coronavirus cases. what does the treatment situation look like. with the complexities and difficulties administering these. >> the thing that is interesting

about covid is the different parts of the united states in washington state, we are looking at the flattening right now at hospitals at a fairly constant sense of covid patients and not seeing significant increases. our forecast don't indicate an increase over the next few weeks but that always pertains to holiday travel of course clini cl cl we've learn add and are optimistic about our capacity to care for patients. we are seeing adoption of those

much more rapidly. thinking back to early days. really sort of on the forefront of the newer they arepeutics. >> the treatment methods have improved we learn a lot and every day things go a little more. we have percentage wise, fewer people in the icu. percentage wise, fewer people being intubated. it is a different situation than it was in april. and late march

this is completely new now we know a lot more you have the mutation everybody is talking about in london and whether we could see any of that here this virus is sneaky. it changes what it looks like and plays like gorilla warfare it attacks some and not others you have to be always on alert. >> the a the end of the day, we have to be smarter if everybody gets vaccinated with the response, we do what we have to do and consistently. if everybody does it, we'll end up ending this pandemic sooner than later this time next year, hopefully

we look back and say, can you remember what we experienced a year ago you have to take care of it. in all likelihood, an upsurge of cases in the third week of january. we have plans for it we know what to do with it and we are prepared. we are not in a crisis situation and won't be in a crisis situation. >> working from that recovery on the j&j platform online how much are you counting on that data being positive

>> we are hoping for an array of vaccine. we have pfizer today and moderna coming we are excited about the j&j product coming online. hopeful it will be another tool in the tool kit we need to fight this virus >> appreciate the time always encouraging >> thank you very much >> coming up, another ev company joining the market jim cramer thinks this would could be a steel we'll speak with the founder of xl fleet >> if they could get even close to hitting the forecast. we get the clarity on the relationship between ford 150, this stock is cheap. xl fleet would be trading 3.3

times the forecast $15 going into the xl fleet merger, i think this stock could be a steel your daily dashboard from fidelity -- a visual snapshot of your investments, key portfolio events, all in one place. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity.

welcome back sto "sqwawk on the street." xl fleet began trading yesterday after completing a reverse merger and going public through a spac 37 to 38% right now. the president and founder of xl fleet joins us now

>> what an exciting day for xl fleet. >> let's talk specifically about what they do if you look back from a market standpoint in 2020, it has been a year of the electric vehicle you are in this space and build out their own vehicles talk to us about the business model. >> we are a fleet electrik company. that's what we've been selling our focus is the electric power train portion of the vehicle

we don't have to deal in all the other portions of making a vehicle. we can use that same supply to go to a plug-in hybrid which we've already launched and the all electric products in 2022. we have a good core technology we can build off of that is an efficient way. >> companies really small 2024 forecasted how do you get to that number in terms of the number you laid out for growth >> tripling our revenue we could have done more we have a great pipeline going into 2021.

a very good platform and introduce a lat more to date, we've raised about $70 million for the spac transaction. we have about $350 million developing more products at the same time. we started 11 years ago. it was a bitterly. we saw demand in the 2018, 2019. in the june, july time frame of this year. we are in a tremendous position to continue the leadership we have in the u.s. market to expand we have international expansion.

our xl grid program we launched is a whole new division. we announced that a couple of weeks ago. we have interest in customers and big projects we are working on you are talking a trillion dollar global industry when you talk about the procurement and you add in the charging infrastructure and it is a tremendous opportunity and it is just getting started less than 1% of vehicles have any level of eletrification. we are leading in units right now. the market clearly has a lot of demand >> what is the pay back period for an owner of a vehicle once they get it converted. i'm wondering how sensitive that is to deezle fuel prices or how many years you'll own the truck.

>> one of the reasons we've developed the platform called xl link that can assess that data that return can range from two years to five years depending on how they are operating we've seen the price of fuel at $100 a barrel, $20 a barrel and back and forth a few times the demand that's glorown the ls two years is dependent on the price of gas reducing emissions to green their fleets one easiest fleets to deploy we can get customers to start the process. it is going to take time this is a multi-decade transition to all electric as well as other zero emission

vehicles and heavy duty fuel-cell trucks >> there is also quite a bit of competition out there. this morning, the news that nikola stock is down because of a canceling contract for garbage trucks, how are you thinking about that bigger, broader landscape and who do you see as your fiercest rivals >> the biggest competitor right now is the status quo. almost everybody is use gasoline or deisle. wherever the economics makes sense is where we'll bring those to market. a lot of noise right now a lot of companies announcing things left and right. xl is way ahead of everybody else >> thank you for joining us

today. xl fleet surging after going public via spac yesterday. >> in the meantime, keep your eyes both on tesla and apple musk tweeting yesterday he once tried to sell tesla to apple but that tim cook refused to take the meeting. tesla on theus cp of having its worst week since march 20. we are back in a minute. some hot cocoa?

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you can watch the croods at we call that a window.n. window. dah, dah, dah. make it a croods family movie night with "the croods: a new age." go to watchcroods.com. >> welcome back to "sqwawk on the street." private equity firms fileding gold in warehouses >> private equity used to make big bets on malls and retailers. with declining foot traffic turned attentions to warehouses. black stone the biggest with a wonning $90 billion in warehouse assets and the support of e commerce the pandemic has kurnturned warehouses like this one and

others operated in cliff ton, new jersey into gold mines $1 billion for every e commerce that acquires 1 million square feet or more especially those located near big urban areas like this one and allowed owners to charge more in rent >> we've watched as the demand has increased. covid has accelerated that trend. many consumers were not particularly users of e commerce we see this kind of demand for the space to be continuing post covid. in 2020, this area has been key bright spot for investors. the question becomes has this area gotten you too hot to

support the demand once the world returns to normal. back to you. >> good to see kathleen on the air talking to you so aggressive. that's the value as high as they are. there is a fine nigite amount ol estate left. >> theres a bit of a lag as people see this up tick of e commerce we have seen a slight tick down in deal volume this year part of that is due to the second quarter when there was so much uncertainty all sectors really took a turn lower. i think right now, you you are seeing this interesting supply -- demand dynamic where there is more supply

not as much supply for people to be vesting in. what that does for prices will be interesting for these new warehouses as they come on to the market morgan >> thank you very much talk to you soon >> former fed vice chair will join us on the other side of the break. stocks now up higher the russell 2000, small cap up three quarters of a percent and has eclipsed the 2000 level. there, small business owner. pie insurance here with some sweet advice to stop you from overpaying on worker's comp. try pie instead and save up to 30%. thirty percent? really? sure! get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie.com. that is easy. so, need another reminder? no, i'm good. reminder for what? oh. ho ho, yeah! need worker's comp insurance? get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie.com.

>> here is your cnbc covid update in the united states, four

consecutive dates of fewer than 200,000 confirmed cases but a near record death toll of 3,400 yesterday. the fifth day this month of more than 3,000 deaths bringing the total counts to bmt 333,000. close to the entire population of lexington, kentucky variants from the uk trying to keep the strain from crossing the english channel. thousands of trucks and their drivers are still backed up near the port of dover. authorities have set up a temporary testing station to get those drivers the negative tests they need to cross the border into france. the tightest tier of

restrictions as that new variant tries to spread. new information around the pandemic relief bill with president trump on video saying it doesn't go enough as far as direct payments. >> the bill they are planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated, it really is a disgrace i'm asking the congress to amend the bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 for $4,000 for a couple. i'm also asking congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessarily items from this legislation and send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a covid package and maybe that administration will

be me. >> joining us now is vice fed chair. this is an unexpected wrinkle. pushing for this version of many of the new elements of this deal what did you think in terms of what was passed as an efficient bridge >> let me start by saying i was very happy to see that it passed on the grounds basically that half a bridge is better than no bridge we'll have a new administration after january 20th, a new congress we can do more hopefully we will do more. this is a good start >> a good start but only on the premise that there would be more to follow. i guess we have to get involved in things like the makeup of the senate and all the rest of it.

would $2,000 now per adult if that is being drawn up perhaps by democrats response to the president be enough if we got to that point >> we don't know you talk about what premise would make that valid. >> the shape of the pandemic and others, a lot. we are not going to have a substantial majority vaccinated going into the past quarter. if it goes slower, we'll need more one reason why i'm not unhappy with taking this first step. 2,000, that's a pipe dream with trump, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

usually you are laughing or crying at the same time. this is an attempt to throw the monkey wrench. there was a stretch to get to 600. for a long time, negotiations didn't have anything like that. >> the airlines of course are going to get some help not only did they spend a lot. the axis markets this year raising $20 billion plus on an industry for investors aimable in talking >> how much more do they deserve? >> probably none out of 99 economies who say not to do that capital markets are capable of seeing past the horizon and to

the point where people are again flying i'm looking forward to flying. this industry will come back, private capital seeking profit looks for opportunities like that this is an industry that has been in the dole drums for a long time but could be better. if you believe in capitalism, you believe they'll flock to opportunities like that. >> talking fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus as well. we can talk about what that means on main street but then on wall street where you see averages near or at record highs and heady valuations within pockets of that market many don't actually furn a profit right now, how much do you worry that all of the stimulus and policy, particularly on the monetary

side is inflating bubbles? >> i worry a little bit. certainly not the fiscal stimulus that may be helping the market a bit very low interest rates. the basic stock market fundamentals, you expect them to lead to stock prices we are getting that. as you no doubt know, people have been talking about bubble in the stock market for two years or more. many just ignore the fact that with low interest rates, you should get used to higher stock valuations or pes. there are places where i shake my head and wonder at the valuations of some of these companies. it reminds me a bit of the internet bubble back in the 90s. with he know what happened then. >> you know, just in terms of

the federal reserve's posture on all of this and gone out of its way to articulate the framework on economics, inflation and year after year will error on the side of easier, if not harder. that is a tough position to be in if on the other hand, you have one eye on the financial implications of the financial back drop. that does feel tricky and maybe next year on the market, they'll try to at least test the fed's commitment on those things >> i don't think the fed is very worried about the stock market's bubble at the very worst, the damage built on the stock market. if something like these happens blows up or bursts especially if confined to the small segment.

what the fed is watching is signs of crazy leverage like we had in the build up to the financial crisis in the first decade of this century if the fed is seeing anything like that right now, and other pockets of craziness where they are watching the places where they are watching all of that with a careful eye. i don't think they are watching all of that. >> they seem okay relative to bond yields. thank you very much. >> keep your eye on bank stocks.

>> go ahead. starting saturday, more than 12 million unemployed americans will have to wait a few weeks before receiving that additional help rahel has more for us. >> yes, more than 12 million unemployed americans will see benefits expire in a few days. when the first stimulus bill was passed, it created several programs that last through december 26. even if the president signs this bill, it still takes weeks for state it systems to get new programs up and running. it will likely be mid to late january to start receiving these benefits not just programming but all the new systems to tell you that the programs are rolled out and have

programs that are slow where people will see a slower roll out time arguing that extension is too short and that lawmakers will have to start acting on the stimulus >> there are people who should maybe not go back to work right now. people who are immuno compromised or work in dangerous work places. you need more benefit. >> on the bright side, the flat $300 weekly benefit will make it easier as they acquire the benefits carl >> we'll be back in a moment keep an eye on bank stocks this morning as jpm is on the yield

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welcome back to "sqwawk on the street." markets are mixed in early trading with the s&pout performing every sector in the s&p. energy is the stand out, upside performer after oil prices rebound. every stock in the sector is posting gains. diamondback energy energy by the way, the best performing sector this month in december and far and away the worst performer since 2020 keep an eye on energy stocks back to you. >> as we head to break check out shares of this stock siege investor enthusiasm

following trial results for its adhd treatment more "sqwawk on the street" coming up. stay with us in a land not so far away,

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we are getting some headlines from speaker pelosi on how has democrats will handle the president's demand for hire speaker, just sent out a letter to her democratic colleagues and others basically saying that they are scheduled to go into a pro form ma session tomorrow at 9:00 a.m we are awaiting word from leader hoyer as to leader mccarthy will agree to or reject our unanimous consent request. basically as you know and we have been talking about, the president is asking for a much bigger payment ms. pelosi puts out the fact that the republican contingent that she has been negotiating with refused to go above the $600 so she's basically throwing down the gauntlet saying, okay, let's meet gain.

but she's waiting to hear back from leader mccarthy and leader hoyer. they are scheduled to meet tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m back to you, carl. >> we'll await reaction from mccarthy, sioux. thank you very much. in meantime, the postal service delays are something we've not yet seen in this country, at least around the holidays hi, bertha. >> the postal service is dealing with a cascade of issues that are really causing massive delays right here as we are during the holiday peak postal season one of the things they admit the first week of december, they say that on-time delivery for first-class mail like letters and bills fell to 75%. part of the problem, staffing shortages. some 18,000 workers are out due to covid they're either sick or in quarantine that's up from 4,000 before thanksgiving, according to the postal union representatives and that amounts to about 3% of staff at a time when it's all

hands on deck. >> it's not a time of year that we take vacations. it's a time of year that we workday and night to move the holiday mail through the system. >> for packages, on-time performance was at about 87% last week, according to data, which says express and priority mail packages have been caught in a bottleneck, in part because as package volume has risen, other shippers have prioritized their other deliver ries, including covid vaccines. >> you may be finding out that our priority mail package is sitting at the origin for a day or two more because they don't have space on the aircraft >> and while other shippers can prioritize shipments and push them off, postal service representatives saying they are taking all packages that come

their way. they do deliver on christmas day if you pay for it right now, but i'm not sure that their delivery rate is going to be as good as santa's morgan. >> yeah, this has been a big story and i'm sure it's going to continue to get bigger over the coming days here thank you for bringing us the latest on that it's a good place to start with our next guest, who co-founded deliver the company's last day for christmas day was december 14th. michael, great to have you on. december 14th, why so early? how does that speak to what we're talking about here in terms of this massive deluge of packages ensnarling networks such as the postal services? >> so we wanted to under-promise and over-deliver here and we had entered the holiday season at around 95% on-time delivery. that's typically low, that's really due to covid. typically around 98% but even entering at 95% was quite strong

as we saw the holiday season come in, we've seen the dip into the 80s. we are not affected as much as shippers because we distribute inventory across the country, so over half the country lives within 100 miles of a delivery location but still you did see us impacted we wanted to add in the buffer by having the last day to guarantee christmas delivery by last monday just to make sure that we're baking in the appropriate time to ensure christmas delivery. >> you're partnered with walmart, amazon, ebay, google. i could go down the list has it been greater -- i guess packages greater demand from an e-commerce standpoint than anybody was modelling for or is it things like the vaccine distribution that is affecting some of the major carrier right now? >> you're going to have a lot of different factors here obviously in terms of the actual volumes, it did exceed

expectations we saw a very strong black friday i was on "squawk alley" a few weeks ago where the black friday numbers gained quite a bit of momentum later in the day. but you obviously have that combined with the facts you mentioned of vaccines being distributed, you have labor shortages. there is light at the end of the tunnel the past week of performance has been quite strong, so we think we're kind of rounding the corner here. the next few weeks you'll see carrier performance return hopefully back to those pre-holiday norms. >> before this whole phase, there was a sense that the logistical networks in this country for package delivery were very stressed is there a bigger picture if these long-term trends continue, that the industry can get ahead of it in any way we're talking about trucks, planes and people. it's not just like adding another server to handle the data. >> absolutely, it's definitely continuing to accelerate on hiring i think you're going to see new

entrants coming into the market with more last-mile carriers coming in. and i think there's going to be a lot of focus on scaling your infrastructure we have doubled our warehouse networks since covid began, actually more than doubled it, and we don't see any signs of that slowing so there's definitely going to be more investment in infrastructure because e-commerce has accelerated essentially five years over a span of eight months so you're definitely going to see that over the coming months. >> we have to leave the conversation there, michael. but thank you for joining us taking a look at the markets right now, the nasdaq is slightly lower, while the s&p and dow trade higher the dow is up 178 points rtquawk alley" is going to sta right after this break, so don't go anywhere.

good morning it is 8:00 at oracle's former headquarters in redwood city, california it's 11:00 on wall street and "squawk alley" is live ♪

♪ well, happy wednesday. welcome to "squawk alley." i'm jon fortt with carl quintanilla and julia boorstin this hour we're going to talk a lot about software a lot of 2020's biggest winners and 2021's biggest growth hopefuls fall into that category that's before we even get to ipos companies joining the public markets are hoping to in '21, software names counted among those, they might have another option and method for doing that, and that is where we'll start this morning leslie picker has some more on the tradio