it is 5:00 a.m and here is your top five at 5:00 on this christmas eve congress meeting for that christmas eve session on $2,000 stimulus checks after president trump criticized the covid relief bill that was just passed brexit breakthrough, the uk and european union nearing a trade deal possibly. and china launching an anti trust probe into tech giants ali baba and then moderna expects its first vaccine to protect against the new covid strain out as well and of course it is that

christmas eve holiday, so if you don't have your shopping done, hurry up we'll find out how retailers did this holiday season. it is thursday, december 24, and you are watching "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc ♪ good morning, i'm dominic chu in for brian sullivan. it is a holiday shortened trading session today. closing bell will ring at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. so we're watching futures right now shaping up to be solidly positive a 97 point gain implied for the dow, s&p by roughly 10 and the nasdaq higher by roughly 21. treasury yields, watching the interest rate picture, starting to show a little bit of movement ten year treasury note yields

dipping just slightly to a hair below 95 basis points. the two year is holding steady and the long bond 1.69%. and we have a lot of news on this holiday shortened trading day. let's start overseas where european stocks are rising on news the uk and the european union are on the cusp of striking a post-brexit trade deal we've heard it before. still though, karen tso is joining us and they got the fishing thing close to sorted out. >> dom, that is the word a brexit deal is imminent, that is the flood bomood from both ss overnight. talks between boris johnson and the european commission president were said to have found consensus, however a briefing on the fishing agreement has been delayed holding up the deal announcement the two leaders were hoping to

make it this morning and we've been on standby since about 7:00 a.m. local time but speaking earlier, ireland's foreign minister assured us a deal is still expected to be outlined today the 2,000 page agreement that is a mammoth document will then go back to parliaments in britain and europe for a vote ahead of the december 31 deadline the ftse early on moved into the green, but has given up some of the gains and tried to claw them back so currently up about 0.2% holding above the 6500 level banks are still trading stronger and there is a trade in some big home builders here smaller big cap stocks have hit record highs and all-important sterling trade pushed higher against a basket of currencies in fact we climbed to about itself 1.3605 mark and we'll peeled off that. but that is strong

extended gains versus the dollar against the safe havens, sterling has it as well. and about 0.8% hire e higher th. and just note, we also have a shortened period of trade today. so that 2,000 page document if it is released, we have a quick time frame for those traders to digest it and make a trade >> karen tso, live in london with the latest there. thank you very much. the brexit deal is possibly in the focus right now, and we're also following a story out of washington, d.c. where nancy pelosi plans to convene congress this morning in a push for $2,000 stimulus payments to individuals. now, this comes of course after congress passed a covid relief big earlier in the week and then president trump attacked it. chris pollone is joining us from washington with the latest and chris, what are the odds that something happens with

$2,000 payments? >> reporter: i'm reminded of a dan rather quoting slim and none and none just walked out the door you hate to be cynical you know, this is going to be one of the bringsiest christmas eve days in the capital over the last several years as you pointed out, the democrats and nancy pelosi putting forward a measure where they will try to appease the president and get those stimulus payments to go from $600 up to $2,000 that has been a priority of theirs for months. and to see the president come out and say that the covid relief act was in the appropriate or not enough for the american people, and that he wanted to see that go up, they are more than willing to try to get that done. the problem is, there are not very many members in washington right now. so in order to do this, nancy pelosi will have to try to do it by unanimous consent what that means is if one person objects, from either party, it will fail. and the republicans have already

said that they are going to object which puts them at odds with the president, the leader of their party. now, to appease him a little bit, you might remember that the president in that twitter video also attacked some parts of the appropriations bill which is all gathered together with there covid relief bill under the omnibus bill and the president was railing against foreign aid. foreign aid which his administration actually requested in many instances. but in order to somewhat appease him, republicans now say that today they will put up a measure where they will try to roll back some foreign aid well, guess what will happen a democrat will likely object to that and we'll be back to where we were, in limbo. the president left for florida yesterday, did not sign this and unemployment benefits are set to run out for millions 6 americans on saturday. and if some sort of appropriations bill isn't signed, the federal government could shut down on monday. >> chris pollone live in

washington, d.c. with the late tles latest there on those talks thank you very much, sir and now to the markets joining us is josh wine at hennessey funds. you heard the commentary here. is the market's future trajectory in the coming weeks predicated solely on these talks about new stimulus >> good morning, dom i think that the market gets it. i think that this current stimulus bill was negotiated for a very long time i think it is clear that there is a lot of -- the rhetoric is maybe well intentioned, but i think that we're done. i think the market is looking forward to, you know, the vaccine story and the reopening of the economy i think all of this uncertainty, you know, people love to say the market hates uncertainty, i don't know if that is so true having experienced this year with you and everyone else

i think the market cares about interest rates and these big long term stories around technology and automation and electric vehicles and you name it so i think the market will take this in stride >> so we know it is taking it in stride, we were just a hair away from record highs for most of the indices. russell 2000 and nasdaq are at record highs again is there anything that gives you pause about the rally we've seen and is there anything that makes you say maybe this is overextended and due for a pause? >> i think that the market reacts to itself so i think that it also always overshooting and undershooting so there is always that. and we call it volatility, but i always laugh a little bit because volatility, we haven't really seen the volatility i think that people would have expected certainly not on the implied side i would say what stalls the market or what makes people think twice is what is

in-evident onin-ef in-evidein inevitab inevitable, which is that quarterly discussion about inflation. probably won't see it, but doesn't mean people can't talk about it i feel like every time there is an incidence of inflation, it gets extrapolated to the broader economy. so anything that gives people a reason to talk for more than a day or two about inflation could stall what looks to be another great year for equities. >> so one of the things that there is concern about right now is the american consumer, we heard about the prospect of stimulus checks that were of the $600 variety, looking to up to maybe $2,000 we know that those stimulus checks were a key part of the retail picture earlier this year is it safe to say that when you look at the companies that you want to buy in the coming weeks and months that the consumer focus does still remain? >> it absolutely does. and i think the increase in the unemployment benefits is part

and parcel of that $600 check that they are looking to make $2,000 i think that, you know, those checks are a bridge loan to, you know, the broader economy for the next few months until things look a little bit normal i would say that, you know, the employment picture just the traditional unemployment rate, you know, coming in more and more will -- no pun intended will trump the idea of a $600 or $2,000 check i think without a doubt that difference is enormous for those that need it and that will receive it i think though that ultimately having a job that lasts, you know, for the indefinite future has a lot more impact than whether it is a $600 or $2,000 check. as important as that is. so i think that we will get there. but yes, the next few months, it is really strange to think that the future is so bright, but the next few months are so murky

but i think that the market is forward looking. we see it every day. futures are rallying this morning. so we'll see as we all say >> and a couple seconds left here what are you buying for the coming year? >> sure. great question so consumer spending we know the story. i think that there is a lot of room left. so we're looking at bjs in our mid cap 30 fund. 14 times earnings. a competitor to costco it firmly lives in costco's shadow and bj's is a great operator, great valuation. they generate ainordinate amoun of consistent free cash flow and also with the motors, there is a big store in used cars. car max, carvana a compelling valuation and they

are firmly entrenched in the used car market. majority of their sales -- or at least auto sales, that segment of revenue as opposed to service. the majority is in used car sales with great margins on that side of the business and then finally big lots, big lots is interesting. they have risen to the he indicatio occasion it is about six times earning. i think it is also about their pivot and kind of getting more into the online business, the ship to store business >> so consumer a big focus there. josh, thank you very much for joining us and happy holidays. >> you too and when we come back, china openingen a an antitrust investigation into ali baba. we'll head to beijing to find out what it means for the company and jack ma. but first check out some of the biggest movers we are in the s&p 500 looking at

d.r. horton, flir systems, and micron as well

a live look at times square

in new york city getting ready for a very different kind of christmas and socially distanced celebration this year. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." our top corespondeporate story n opening up an anti trust advice into ali baba. eunice yoon is joining us with the details. he probably has to be the most high profile business person in all of china and certainly one of the big esz in tgest in the . what is going on with the campaign against jack ma >> well, china is investigating ali baba's alleged no ma november police tick practices including what is called pick one of two, which is forcing merchants on your site only work with one players a opposed to its separately ant group was also summoneded so this whole idea has been

quite common in the market for years. and not only by ali baba, so there has been a lot of questions today as to why it is that we're seeing this investigation. of course a lot of this has to do, at least the speculation is, with jack ma's recently fiery speech where he was highly critical of beijing's regulators and also at a time when president xi jinping has been looking to exert more control over private industry. he said that he planned to prioritize anti-monday no november police tick efforts in 2021 so investors are trying to figure out what the impact will be, a lot of chinese tech companies think that we'll see big players facing a whole lot of scrutiny and that this could mean anything from fines, fweeking the business model, or potentially and in a nightmare a flare yoe an end to the v.i.e.

structure. and one thing that people are saying here, the saving grace for chinese tech, that at the end of the day, beijing still wants to have national champions. so we saw that reflected in the state media. almost immediately after actually this announcement by the regulators where the people's daily which is a highly influential paper said that the purpose of this investigation is for better development of the online economy. >> so eunice, there is a school of thought out there that the next frontier for conflict between the u.s. and china, not from and an taking miss tikin at from technology. we are battling it here and china is as well is there a sense that we have again these are the standard bearers, it is the alphabets, the amazons, the facebooks, the

microsofts, the apples of america versus everybody on the chinese side of things can the government really go after these companies that strongly when these are the ones who will be kind of battling it out competent pe differenceitivs years or maybe decades >> that was another point of discussion here. especially within the chinese tech community i had people telling me that this is really the next stage for chinese tech that we would be seeing this anyway because a lot of tech companies not only here in china but worldwide are coming under scrutiny but i think what is also interesting is that it is being seen here as a way of leveling the playing field because worldwide with some of the global tech companies. because over in congress, in china people have heard the argument that, oh, well, u.s. congress shouldn't be worried about u.s. tech companies. they should be worried about chinese tech companies but now chinese tech companies are coming under scrutiny as well so maybe there will be a little bit of a leveling of the playing

field when it comes to all of the regulators >> universal campaign brewing on all sides of the world eunice yoon, thank you very much and happy holidays coming up on the show, the nba postpones a game because of covid. and fines a superstar for a protocol violation those details coming up. today's big number 77.9%. that is how often the s&p 500 is positive in the seven days following christmas eve dating back to 1950 the santa claus rally in the eredbo 1er christmas has avag aut.3%. no one likes to choose between safe or sporty.

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let's get a check on the other top headlines with philfil men in mena president trump is granting clemency to 29 more people the president gave a full pardon to charles kushner, father of his son-in-law jared kushner the millionaire real estate developer pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax evasion and making

illegal campaign donations and in another rebuke to the mueller investigation, mr. trump pardoned his former campaign chairman paul manafort he was convicted of hiding millions of dollars he made from political consulting for the pro-russian government in ukraine. the president also gave a full pardon to long time ally and former campaign adviser roger whose sentence he had previously commuted stone was convicted last year on charges of making false statements, obstruction and witness tampering. as the virus continues surging, there are growing calls to stay home despite this, 85 million americans are expected to travel for the holidays 20 states plus d.c. now have travel restrictions for new arrivals finally, the nba has fined james harden $50,000 and ruled him unavailable to play in wednesday's game that was ultimately postponed for violating the league's covid protocols.

this is after video surfaced of hillary clinton him partying maskless as a club earlier this week >> phillip rng tha, thank you. coming up, it is eve, but if you haven't finished your shopping just yet, you are not alone. we'll head to the mall to find out what retailers are expecting and how they have done this holiday season

president trump and congress clashing over stimulus and defense bills. brexit breakthrough, the uk and eu are set to announce a trade deal possibly today. and streaming a new strategy, what tomorrow's simultaneous release of wonder woman 1984 in theaters and on hbo max could mean to the big business ever hollywood. it is thursday, december 24th, christmas eve, 2020. you are watching world wide exchange right here on cnbc. welcome back here is how your money a investments are looking. stock futures are pointing to

modest gains dow jones implied higher by almost 100 points. s&p would be higher by about 11. and the nasdaq rising up roughly 25 if these futures moves hold on the bond side of things, a slight tick lower, veryslight tick lower in ten year u.s. treasury note yields, just a hair below 95 basis points two year 12 basis points and the 30 year long bond just below 1.69% there. also want to take a look at what is happening with the status check on three particular sectors that we want to focus on in 2020. those are technology up 25%. consumer discretion their stocks up 25% and then energy only up about 2% the reason why, over the last six months and certainly in the year to date basis, these three sectors, those two have been top performers and energy the bigger laggard. so watch those sectors as well especially during the holiday

season president trump's criticism on the covid relief bill passed earlier this week could lead to a government shutdown and a lapse in unemployment aid. the president says he waentss $2,000 direct payments instead of $600 wants. democrats led by nancy pelosi will try to pass those payments today. but minority leader kevin mccarney in the house is expected to object and offer a new temporary spending bill. president trump hasn't said if he will veto the bill or just not sign it. but if there is a delay in the measure becoming law, the expanding of jobless benefits that cover 12 million people will expire saturday and if the part of the legislation that would keep the federal government running september 30th is not signed in to law by tuesday, the government will shut down. the uk and you're also experoo

expected to announce a brexit deal later today the british pound rising on news of a possible breakthrough in those negotiations and in corporate news, ali baba shares are under pressure today on the heels of news that chinese government is conducting an anti monopoly probe into the tech giant meantime chinese authorities also plan to meet with jack ma and the other company he has ant financial group. regulators say they want supervise the company on a number of different issues and now the other big story of the morning and that is reach tail and the final holiday push. bertha coombs has been covering that for us. 'tis the season. we know shoppers are very important this time of year. >> they certainly are. and procrastinators heading to the malls today should find plenty of elbow room in store. retailers expect the curbside

pick june of pick upof orders will remain brisk. but foot traffic in the stores has been light with more than a third of consumers surveyed by cnbc saying that they are just avoiding stores right now amid covid. retail foot traffic was down nearly 48% from a year ago in novemb november and then dipped even more last week with that big snowstorm that blanketed much of the east coast. while mall based department stores are seeing fewer shoppers in-store, those consumers aren't just window shopping they are making purchases and bigger ones. and the stores have done a lot to preserve margins on those sales. >> generally speaking inventories are about four points below sales earlier part of the pandemic, retailers behaved very, very quickly in cutting inventories, so inventory control has been

good and that should help gross margins. >> and investors have certainly been buying the half full story. in other wor nordstrom has been down for the year, but outperforming the big box stores with strong gains quarter. and that helped the s&p hit another record intra day high. which you would not expect given how tough it has been this year. >> been crazy. because you look at the kind of -- the tale of two retailers out there. we know that they have search surged since the pandemic lows, but one company doing all of it has been amazon. is there a sense right now that the holiday season is very much more still about those amazon type retailers as well as the online big box stores? >> well, i mean obviously if you are shopping today, good luck

trying to get something delivered on time from amazon and you will pay through the nose for that immediate shipping and shopping i think the sense is that obviously the big essential retailers will continue to be the bigger winners when you look at how far down they are, some of -- most are standalone the walmarts, the targets of the world. you know, and even when you look at the specialty he retail old navy versus gap, those tend to be more standalone stores. those are doing better and they actually because oftentimes they are bigger, they are only down about 10% or so according to some analysts in terms of foot traffic. so -- and they have a lot better fulfillment ability because they are standalone in their parking lots as well so those guys are continue to be the big winners. but the department stores, because they are leaner, because there are fewer of them, don't forget, lord and taylor is going out of business.

you have brooks brothers restructuring. so that is helping them out a bit. and again, they have been very disciplined about their inventories. remember 12 years ago, you used to see 75% off sales because they had to get rid of the inventories during the great recession. this time around, they have had sales, but they are still able to sell some things full price >> yeah, not as much about promotional kind of i guess merchandising this time around especially with the pandemic and lean inventories bertha coombs, thank you very much for that. let's talk more about the holiday shopping season and what is ahead for the retail sicker to overall to -- sector overall in 2021 and joining me no is a retail analyst. jessica, you heard the report, is it still just about those big box stores and amazon this holiday season, what about all the small businesses, how is the shaping up for everybody across the spectrum

>> good morning and thank you for having me. really what we've continued to see through the holiday season are categories that the consumer has been interested during the pandemic and even in this holiday season obviously home has been very strong, so retailers are offering home products, home depot, lowes, target has done well and other retailers who do carry home categories, urban outfit r outfitters, william are so s so they are also doing well and if we're spending more time outdoors, hiking, ski season, those are applies tickets that are quite high so we expect dick's to do quite well during this holiday season. and most of these retailers what they end up having a often curb side, and so that is key in the time of a pandemic and more so as we come up closer to the end of the holiday season ensuring that customers do have something

to give their loved ones >> in terms of trends, we know that lot of the retail spend over the course of 2020 with the government assistance checks and everything else has been geared towards home improvement do we expect that that trend continues especially because we're talking so much these days about more enhanced unemployment benefits and drenkts stiirect ss checks >> yeah, we're expecting home to continue into 2021 again, a lot of the new ideas that consumer learned during the pandemic, some of these are sort of coming up prior, people were spending more time at home and obviously because of the pandemic there is more work from home, more zoom calls. and making sure that you have the right setup for you to feel comfortable. i think in a time where things have been very uncertain financially or just health-wise, being at home in your safe place has been something that people have invested in and there is also the amount of homes that have sold so there is still the investment

that will continue to go into those homes as we go into 2021 so again, i think that it is just a category of strength. either you are buying tech or traditional goods for your home, making sure that your children have a good setup for their education as well. so there is a lot of moving parts that go in the home part >> and wochbts bone of the big d beneficiaries is outdoor sports. i'm a golfer i know golf has surged in recent months dick's is one of those beneficiaries. is there more of a gearing in 2021 toward that momentum keeping intact for companies like say maybe a nike or dick's and people geared toward more activities outdoors? >> yes, we are definitely seeing positive momentum with all of that and again, you know, consumers have learned during the pandemic and we sgenkt them to continue and again, there was some little bit that was climbing into prior

to the pandemic and just really accelerated the trends that we were seeing come through before hand and so you know, going out hiking, doing more sports either indoor or outdoor, more running, camping, for the winter season, we expect skiing to do quite well so we expect them to all be quite positive but we don't expect people to go, you know, even with the vaccine to go back to a complete normal life. it is really a new normal and these new habits have been really practiced and i think that they will continue to go in in that direction. and what really helped the outdoor category, people hasn't been doing camping or road trips, so they had to buy from the beginning high priced ticket items. so i think people are still going on that trend. >> all right

jessica ramirez, thank you very much happy holidays and coming up on the show, wonder woman 1984 being released in theaters and hbo max sfreemisfreem i streaming at the same time what it could mean to the big business of hollywood. but first as we head to break, check out some of the big movers in the dow johnson and johnson, boeing, goldman sachs. and on the down side, you are also seeing some of the dow pre-market movers in cisco, nike and united health. for skin that never holds you back don't settle for silver #1 for diabetic dry skin* #1 for psoriasis symptom relief* and #1 for eczema symptom relief* gold bond champion your skin

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♪ you're a mean one mr. grinch, you really ♪ okay, that right there is a live shot of one of the most iconic parts of new york city during the holiday season. and it is rockefeller center, the ice rink the tree is not yet lit up but it will be in roughly 17 minutes or so. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." futures right now pointing to green speaking of lights and colors you can see there roughly about 100 point gain for the dow implied at the open, s&p by 11 and nasdaq roughly 24 point gain if you haven't notice your gasoline prices have risen dramatically in the last couple

weeks. right now wti crude $48, and world brent crude, $51.10. both off about one quarter of 1% and one of the biggest stories in terms of price appreciation so far in 2020 has to be cryptocurrency and bit coin in particular right now according to bitcoin and bit stamp prices were floating around $23,211. remember, just around the pandemic lows, we were below $5,000 per token and now it is around $23,000 one of the world's most recognizable super heros is heading for the big and small screens at the same time and she may be taking on her riskiest adventure yet at leastly warner media is releasing wonder woman 1984 on its hbo max streaming service tomorrow, the same day that it debuts in theaters in the u.s. the company, which is owned by at&t, will repeat that strategy for its entire lineup of films

coming out in 2021 at least four of those movies including wonder barack obama have woman have a reported budget well north of $100 million a piece. so how will it work on a stre streaming platform let's bring rebecca. can you make blockbusters and put them on stream something there kntsd can't be that many subscribers paying that kind of money just yet. >> absolutely. and wonder woman 1984 is going to be the first big movie like you said to kind of test out this strategy. and it is a huge surprise because the first wonder woman when it opened in 2017 was one of the biggest movies of the year, it made over $800 million at the box office. and people thought that the sequel could have easily made a billion dollars. and so instead it is coming out at a time when hardly any movie theaters are open and a lot of

people are choosing to stay at home and stream movies from their couch. and so we're really going to see just how willing people are to go out to the movies when they could see the exact same movie at home and for less money because the cost of hbo max for one month is around the same price as a single movie ticket >> so there is an old saying, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. is thisan investment that is coming from warner media, is this something that says, you know what, let's get them in the door and then they will just stay there kind like what netflix has done, maybe what disney plus is aspiring to do? if we just pay that $15 for one movie ticket, but did it every single month, maybe that does change the economics of the business >> yeah, financially for the consumer it is a great deal. and the biggest problem that hbo

max is having right now is just reminding people that it exists. the rollout was a little bit botched. people were kind of confused at the difference between hbo the channel and hbo max the streaming service. and there are still ten of millions of people who don't know that they have hbo and they didn't know that for no additional cost they could get hbo max. and so this was a huge flashy way to say we exist about and you can get all these incredible movies from your couch over the next year. >> in terms of streaming, the movie side of things, i can see. disney plus when my daughter maybe or maybe didn't want to watch "mulan," we had to pay $29, $30 to watch it and it is now kind of free on the platform if you pay the subscription where is it now going to take the movie theater industry, are they going to stop charging that

premium fee? hbo max is not doing it for wonder woman 1984. disney about it with "mulan. what will be overall trend be in the coming months? >> i think that it will be streaming service dependent. i think right now hbo max, they need to get subscribers. they can't really say hey, you need to subscribe and you need to pay an extra $30 to see wonder woman right now they will just be happy if millions of people sign up for their streaming service but disney plus on the other hand has millions upon millions of subscribers and so they have a little bit more flexibility to test out this model and say hey, how much would people pay to see a movie that would have been a huge blockbuster on the big screen. and so they put some movies on like "mulan" for a premium price, but then they have offered another which is a pixar movie for no extra charge. and so they have a lot of room to test out a bunch of

strategiesstrategy a s and see what is the most successful >> and which streaming plat form excites you the most 2021 >> i actually think that hbo max has a great library. i just watched the flight attendant. and so it is not just movie, they have a lot of exciting products and i think that it is worth it >> rebecca rubin, thank you very much for that insight and happy holidays >> thanks. and on deck for 2021, our market predictions but first, if you haven't already done so, subscribe to our new podcast for "worldwide exchange." the show every day put into audio form if you miss us on the small screen check us out on and the, spotify or any other podcast application.

♪ that calming music is probably not as calm as what is happening in d.c. d.c. rigright. but hopefully they have a merry christmas as they renegotiate the covid relief bill. let's take a look at the markets. we can see the dow jones implie slightly hire slightly higher by roughly 100 points rod is joining us. is it going to be a sand clau e rally and will that mean better days for the market in 2021? >> good morning, dom listen, we're wondering whether there will be a santa rally. of course the market feels that

way. but there is a lot of opportunity for a bah humbug hangover there is a lot of business on the plate. and with light volumes here going in to christmas holiday, so a shortened trading day, things can go either direction i think that all eyes are on the administration to understand what is going to happen. eyes are looking at brexit of course right across the pond with my colleagues in europe and of course covid and congress are on our minds here in washington, d.c. >> is letso let's take about wh you are optimistic about what happens. is there a path higher for the markets, is it all already priced in? >> there is a path higher and we think that path higher is into 2021 we'll see again a lot of things are being packed into the risk markets over the next week we have to sort this out we need to figure out whether

we'll have a defense authorization bill, whether the government is going to shut down or we get an extension, is that going to be a short extension or will it be until end of the fiscal year like we think. the market futures seem to think that that will come out pretty well and they also think that things across the pond in europe will come out well on brexit. but the devil will be in the details. remember even if prime minister johnson and commissioner president announce a deal today, there is a lot of work that has to happen in parliaments next week to get that done. and there is opportunities for the ball to get dropped. same thing here on this side of the pond and congress. the congress has got some wood to chop and if the president has a pocket veto or sits on that covid relief package until he sees or hears the right things from congress, it could be a rocky week ahead >> so let's talk about whether or not that rocky week ahead maybe even weeks ahead could signal something for the market because right now the argument

has been made that valuations are stretched, not a lot of people are saying it is like 1999, but some illusions to this have been made on places like 13450e6d do social media. does it feel like valuations like this will be an issue in 2021 >> valuations being stretched i think if we put it back into the perspective of where interest rates are at this point in time, in this environment, those valuations actually aren't too bad at all we think that taking a look specifically just at those things over the short period of time, time horizon less than three years, can actually lead to a lot of confusion. we believe that equities have continued room to run. we think that market and multiple expansion is there especially in some segments of the universe that really haven't done particularly well in the last year. we're looking at small and mid caps as the economy reopens. but the key question is when

will that economy reopen because we may be coming back from the holidays to more closures, more shutdowns, and more questions about covid vaccine distribution, efficacy and things like that so i'm not worried about the equity markets there are a few alternatives, but the path ahead in the near future is probably going to be a little bit bumpy >> all right what is the biggest concern that your clients have right now? >> biggest concern clients have is actually over in the fixed income market. and we're there, we see lots of challenges in fixed income because our expectation is that the fed will continue to keep rates very low on the short end. and if we did get a restart of activity, that puts some pressure there on longer term bonds. and so there we're looking for inflation protection because it could rear its ugly head in the new year >> all right rod von lipsey, thank you very

much and happy holidays. >> happy holidays to you and merry christmas to even out there who celebrates it. i know i do. but happy holidays to everybody out there and i'll see you guys in 2021. here is wishing all of you a happy and healthy and safe orwi ehaseason in 2021 "wlddexcnge" is over now. "squawk box" picks up coverage coming up next in a land not so far away, people are saving hundreds on the most reliable network with xfinity mobile. they can choose from the latest phones or bring their own.

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it is the day before christmas. and for the last aten year, we'v been using this space to slow done and bring cheer but this year has been brutal. so let's speed this thing up and get to the end of this whole cluster [ bleep ].

♪ vaccinations leave the lab, how soon will you get the jab? so settle in, and be our guest with morgan, and ars, let's talk about your money, travel stocks and the dow. this christmas eve "squawk box" begins right now ♪ better not pout, i'll tell yo why, making a list, stroking it twice, going to find out whose naughty and nice ♪ right here on this cnbc on christmas eve, we'll call it christmas eve special right here on squawk. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with morgan brant. joe and becky are off. n morgan, i hope you bought your presents i'll admit it on the