overnight. it is monday, december 28th, 2020 and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ >> good morning and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm melissa lee along with jk jk a joer can n er cakernan and mike. the dow jones looking to add about 170 the at open, s&p looks to be up by 26, nasdaq looking to be up by 83 treasury yields edging a little bit higher look at the ten-year yield, 0.955% with the two-year note at 0.125. markets are closed in london, canada and australia in observance of boxing day look at the picture in europe. the dax up by 1.5%, a record

high for the dax it is the highest level since about well, it goes way back up 67% since march and of course it's an exporter heavy index so it is benefitting from the last-minute brexit deal last week joe? >> thanks. melissa, president trump signing that pandemic aid bill government funding package into law last night, a few days after suggesting he could veto the bill diana olick joins us more to talk about this. i'm told, you can check my math, diana, that 2020 ends this week. do you know that >> thank goodness. >> can you confirm that? >> i can confirm that. >> this week, we made it well, we're limping along into the end of it, but we made it. the market's doing pretty well anyway, and this isn't hurting this latest news, should help a lot of people but obviously not as much as maybe some people would have wanted.

>> yes, that's right, joe. look, it was an 11th hour move came as unexpectedly as president trump's original creditism is of the bill which happened after it was passed last tuesday in congress and while the $900 billion in pandemic relief is now law, it's not quite over yet the president's beef had been over stimulus checks to individuals making up to $75,000 a year the agreement was $600, but after the bill was passed, trump suddenly tweeted a scathing criticism and demanded $2,000 checks there will now be a vote on that increase in the house today and then the senate could consider it tuesday in a statement last night, the president wrote "i have told congress that i want for less wasteful spending and more money going to the american people in the form of $2,000 checks per adult and $600 per child." but in a response to the bill signing, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell last night made no mention of a potential new

vote senate minority leader chuck schumer made something of a dare tweeting "the house will pass a bill to give americans $2,000 checks then i will move to pass it in the senate no democrat its will object. will senate republicans? and the answer to that, joe, still to come, of course >> that's interesting. so a nice meeting of the minds between senator schumer and president trump, that's kind of weird. at this point, diana, we've seen bills going back years and years and you can always find these weird provisions in there for things that are just so hard to understand, that somebody obviously has some reason for including it, and same with this bill you know, the people that are again some of the pork, they can list these things, and some of them are just like, you can't even figure out why they're in

there. do you think we have to get used to that, that's just the ways of washington, the way the sausage is made? is that why it's called pork because it's like -- >> that's exactly, precisely why it's called that joe, i've been in washington over 20 years now and you see these bills and they are chock full of all kinds of things. the headline numbers are the ones we're looking at. the stimulus, et cetera, the relief for renters which of course i'm interested in, but there's always tons of extra stuff and precisely why they call it pork and why you get so much debate and controversy over them >> we brought out you say flying pigs on "squawk box. i didn't know how much video we have you probably remember we brought them back and may need to -- >> i do. >> -- bring that segment back. i don't know i was going to say since maybe going to -- i'm not going to get into that, both sides do it so i'm not going to say next year there could be more. anyway, just not going to do it.

not going to do it i want to be very, very -- that's my new year's resolution. just like you, just like this. thank you. just like santoli, thank you, diana olick. mike, good morning how are you? >> good morning. >> did santa bring you everything you wanted? >> yeah, no complaints no complaints this year. >> what do we want when you get to where we have everything? >> a little bit of time alone, i don't know >> underwear >> although that's not what we wanted after this year it was tough to come up with a list but i guess i'm in good shape not having any regrets on it let's talk about what's going on across the world here. shares of alibaba fell nearly 8% in hong kong overnight the stock down about 8% in the previous session last thursday as well after chinese regulators announced a probe into monopolistic behavior. tencent also fell sharply.

>> baba shares fail, antgroup is ordered to comply with regulatory requirements and rectify its businesses china bank executives ordered them to bring their business into compliance with regulators and switch the focus back to the payments business. it said antgroup lacks sound governance, defied regulatory compliance and engaged in regulatory arbitrage and excludes rivals and hurts the rights and interests of consumers. chinese regulators halted ant's ipo last month we when we saw baba shares fall precipitously it's worth reminding viewers baba owns about 33% in ant, and so the stories are intertwined and may knob coincidence also alibaba announced an increase to their buyback program hoping to justify set some concerns and we is it see the shares full precipitously over the past two sessions >> their imbiambitions, making

of the free cash flow and buy back shares. we'll see how deep that decline goes today >> they got on the wrong side of somebody and it's apparent you know, whenever we, many times in the past when we translate chinese into english, maybe it's not, but you read that line that the regulators accused ant of despising regulations. i just wonder, is that the perfect word for what -- i can see how they'd say that i don't know, how would we say it here without using the word despise a lot of companies don't like regulations that chafe under regulations but the way i read it, what is the behind the scenes story here? >> when you have jack ma, way back when the ant financial ipo was initially scrapped it was traced back to comments that jack ma made publicly about the central bank and about the chinese government stifling regulation, stifling innovation, it's not regulation, stifling

innovation with regulation and that sort of raised the, you know, ire of the regulators. >> people alsoed onage financial has the potential to transcend banking regulations in government if you look at the financial technology companies here, the payment systems, going around the regulated banks and that's not necessarily well received in china at this point. >> right the government wants to do the digital currency that was an interesting piece there, too >> right >> with no fees. still seems like it's fiat currency, though, based on the underlying yuan. is that digital? i don't know >> yes pretty much. most money is digital. we could talk about what's pure and what's not, i guess over time the irony here is that we talked for how long china opposes and places restrictions on u.s. tech firms in china

clearly it's not just about where the companies come from, it's the activities themselves and having control >> once upon a time a thought these companies were state champions, always backed by the chinese government and that's one reason why you could say "safely" invest in them but here we are, chinese crackdown causing this massive tumble in alibaba shares >> if you love regulation, communism is for you you can, be nice to really just own everything never mi nevermind. >> they have command and control. >> exactly when we come back we'll talk strategy as we head into the final four trading days of 2020. futures looking at a positive open, toward record levels across the board 0.6 higher on the s&p 500, dow up 184 as we head to a break, here is a look at this week's squawk planner. s&p case-shiller home prices

tomorrow, pending home sales wednesday and weekly jobless claims on thursday we'll be right back. save hundreds on your wireless bill

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get a $50 prepaid card when you switch. nationwide 5g is now included. switch and save hundreds. xfinity mobile. in our latest cnbc quarterly stock report, many more respondents believe the first four years of a biden administration will be worse for stocks than president trump's four years for more on the markets, let's bring in steve whiting, global

chief investment strategist at citi private bank and greg branch from veritas financial group. good morning to you both >> good morning. >> steve, results in the survey probably reflect this idea or sense out there among investors that the markets have come a long way toward perhaps building in some kind of recovery evaluations maybe with a little bit of stretch at the same time. we have all these early cycle recovery forces in play. where does that leave you in terms of looking for some kind of unexplored opportunity for 2021 for your clients? >> well, look, i would start out by saying that absolute returns in u.s. large cap shares will probably not match 2020 for the year prior that we had built in significant recovery and the impact of the dramatic easing and monetary policy, so the one thing that we probably can double up on is the effects of falling interest rates and the valuation of growth stocks we still have a long way to go

to close the economic impact and cyclical stocks that have been beaten down by covid now that i think again has come pretty significantly it's come very, very fast but there's a lot to go. only about one-third of that dispersion closed. so when we look forward, we have to say that many of these types of companies are not long-term growth opportunities they may be under some secular pressure, industries like energy, for example, but there's going to be a rebound in those they're going to go further and then we're going to go back to high quality income growth type equities i think that we'll still do well with that. there's a long way to go we can grow solidly through 2022 >> greg, this idea that perhaps we are experiencing the beginnings of a catch-up trade in cyclical stocks, value stocks, things outside of large cap growth one, does it make sense that process remains under way and two, is it only going to be by the cheaper laggard stocks going

up as opposed to a little pressure on the big mega cap growth stocks? >> yeah, i think it makes sense we have a lot more runway here i think 2021 will look a lot like 2010 to 2012, at the previous guest intimated, certain sectors that had not participated grow faster from an earnings perspective off of a cyclical bottom. i think there are a number of sectors that will benefit from that projected to grow two to three times as fast as tech will grow next year, for example. in terms of where we should look, again, there are a number of cyclicals that have been beaten down and neglected in this rally so some consumer discretionaries look particular lay pely appeale know what the business model looks like gaining stocks which are not like airlines and not like cruise lines, where we

don't know what their business model looks like and ceos don't know what business models look like for next year but we have regional information how the businesses have started to rebound, names like wynn and las vegas sands should put up $3 a share in earnings and $3 a share in dividend from a net loss this year and look at the banks where we still trade at a significant discount to price to tangible book from their histories, albeit a lot of the gap has been closed, but there's still some great names in there that traditionally led us in a recovery >> as the morning goes on, steven, i'm wondering if you're learned about technical forces in the markets going into year end of and going into next year in terms of rebalancing and the force that that could have, given the run in stocks, will portfolios be forced to rebalance? morgue-an interesting note out i think about a month ago or so, saying $300 billion from stocks to bonds because of rebalancing.

>> that's a really good opportunity then to invest fundamentally around those types of technical forces. again, this is probably the rebalancings will not occur in the final week of the year, when liquidity is low but if dedicated asset managers who do asset allocation and put money back into very rich bond markets, and that causes any kind of slowdown in equities, we want to take advantage of that and you probably won't even be able to tell when it occurs in markets. an all likelihood as the early part of the year, things like this does occur it's a more liquid period in markets i wouldn't worry about that too much >> perhaps the next stretch of road ahead of us might look something like 2010 to 2012. the rally off the low this year is very much like the one we saw in 2002009 that would fit we did see a couple of pretty good scares there, 15% plus

declines in 2010 and 2011. do you think that that kind of environment might also repeat itself or maybe because there's not going to be necessarily as much fear of the fed changing policy in response to short term economic action that we don't have to be concerned >> yes, acome tated -- >> sorry, greg >> accommodated fed is great in the short and long-term. rates will remain low and liquids given as needed. there are undiagnosed risks in the short term, in particular the january 5th special election can have an enormous effect on what the economy looks like in 2021 the republican senate already indicated they have little more appetite for additional stimulus as needed and most reputable economists would tell you that this bill doesn't quite get us where we need to be, and that there will need to be subsequent rounds to keep the economy in good shape so that's a risk

we have a new strain in the uk and europe that's yet uning itt undiagnosea could provide a shock. we expect we'll move up the vaccination curb in the spring and there will be a global synchronized recovery pushing a lot of these cyclical stocks and businesses higher. of course, that's something we can't see in some of the undiagnosed risks. >> steve, did you want to add something on the interplay with the economy and fed and markets? >> no, look, i just think that really strikes us the most about 2020 is that the initial shock from this pandemic had a dramatic psychological effect. we give a lot of credit to stimulus, but the ability for the economy to adapt, to use technology to adapt to this shock is probably even stronger. of course it helped to have the central bank limit downside

risks, negative spirals, these sorts of things. i think $900 billion spent over a short period of time is going to provide a really, really helpful bridge to the period when we get those vaccines in place. if something happened, whether it's a mutation in the virus, we're facing something that can't be handled with the vaccines t wou, it would be a different story. >> the disclaimer across the board, thanks very much. >> thank you nearly 2 million vaccines have been administered in the u.s. as of saturday. the rollout now beginning in europe details are next as we head to break the biggest winners and losers in the s&p 500 year to date we love the new apartment. the natural light is amazing. hardwood floors. there is a bit of a clogging problem.

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time for the executive edge. european union began rolling out its covid vaccination program yesterday. in greece a nurse and an 88-year-old man who lived in a nursing home that were the first to receive the shot, followed by the president and the prime minister france is also prioritizing nursing home residents and in berlin, officials opened a vaccination center for medical workers to get the jab, it is in the teleprompter we go back and forth, shot, jab that was in greece keep going, i'm fine the ramp up in vaccine distribution has been big for

business for the makers of medical equipment like vials sio2, silicon dioxide is making the vials for moderna vaccine, also known as silica, melissa, in case you're wondering the ceo spoke about the explosion in sudden demand >> we provide a package which is a fusion of glass and plastic which has never been done before the vial itself is pretty small but you can throw it against the wall, drive it over with a tank or hummer, doesn't break we were doing about 5 million to 10 million vials pre-pandemic. after getting the government contract we produce that amount on a monthly basis in a matter of three months we went from 109 employees to 550 employees. we went from one factory to four factories. it aksccelerated our business plans three to five years. a number of tents outside so

employees could eat outside, parking up and down the streets, on the grass, daily visits from the town basically saying you got to move the cars the team is working 24/7 we work straight through thanksgiving and working straight through christmas and new year's everybody has a very strong sense of pride, a high level of commitment to be the guy cleaning the floors, the woman on the production line, people in the quality team, everybody understands what they're contributing to. >> coming up, a boeing 737 max is set to return to the skies this week for paying customers we got details after the break later the former sacks ceo about the rebound in retail. the s&p retail index up more than 40% near to date. "squawk box" will be right back. i made a business out of my passion.

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good morning u.s. opens slightly higher, up 197 points now on the dow.

s&p indicated up 28. nasdaq up almost 90 points boeing 737 max jet is preparing to return to the skies this week with paying passengers american airlines will become the first u.s. carrier to resume flights with the plane starting tomorrow with flights between miami and new york's laguardia airport. 2020 a lucrative year for zoom's ceo eric yewian $17 million, mike it's interesting bloomberg article about the numbers for tech in 2020, and the number of zoom accounts, greater than ten employees, up 485%, something like that. >> yes, unbelievable >> third quarter >> the big bet now is how many of them stick around and paying customers and what's already been factored into that valuation. just a stunning change in

corporate behavior in several months "wonder woman 1984" topped the weekend box office with $16.7 million in ticket sales, of course low by historical standards but it is the best debut for any movie since the pandemic began it was released in theaters and hbo max streaming platform parent at&t said nearly half of its retail subscribers streamed the movie on christmas day at&t also said it's fast tracking a third installment of the wonder woman franchise coming up, president trump signing that $900 billion funding package last night which includes a covid relief bill he called a disgrace last week. we'll talk about what's in the bill next and the biggest gainers in the s&p on that news, three cruise stocks among today today's big winners but for the year some of its biggest losers. watch us any time live on the

cnbc app please do that wel bk.'lbeac

welcome back u.s. equity futures are indicated higher, about 0.6 upside nasdaq, s&p and dow implied at this point the s&p 500 intraday all-time highs 3726 at this point if we open it would surpass that, joe.

>> thanks, mike. president trump signing a government funding package last night, it includes a large coronavirus relief bill he originally objected to last week, calling for an increase in the size we're going to talk more about the stimulus package and loni chen stanford university, and, and former north dakota senator heidi heitkamp, she's also a cnbc contributor and i saw you, heidi, i could watch you in my monitor, i saw you laughing when they asked you that question why is it funny when i want to know where you're coming from with us today? why is that funny? >> well, why do you want to know i just want to see -- >> because i want to know. because i want to know i want to know i want to know, you are in mandan, which is like 200 miles pe west of fargo.

in the 200 mile stretch, is there anything, at all, between fargo and mandan >> there are millions of acres of land that feeds the world how is that? >> that's beautiful. i'm fascinated -- look, there's a reason why they make the recurring episodes of "fargo." it's a beautiful but austere look and it's a balmy 9 degrees and snow is expected i don't know if you expect it. lan yi, i don't know where you are at all i don't really care. i'm fascinated, you know that, heidi, whenever you come on i'm fascinated now that's out of the way, heidi, schumer is ready to go 2,000. should we have gone 2,000? >> i think that what has to happen is we have to take a pause and actually look at what's working and what isn't

working. what's good about this bill is its relief for schools, relief for day cares, head starts, getting our schools back up and running, getting some emergency relief, and to me, the one thing that you haven't heard is prioritization almost like let's take as much money as we can, throw it up against the wall and hope that it solves our problem. we could be more strategic especially when we have huge debt and deficits looming. the part of this that's getting lost, joe, is this huge spending bill for the next fiscal year, that no one's really paying attention to, except the president exposed some of the warts on that moving forward, and so we've got to get our fiscal house in order but we also have to provide for the american people during this pandemic, and so where is that balance? i think it requires a whole lot more discussion. >> senator, you were there, and we've talked about it, lan yi, go i have me one more second

here you know how the weird things get in these bills do you look at your colleagues that have some vested interest or something i mean, to laymen out here, just across the country, we see some of those bizarre earmarks that are in there, and we can't figure out for the life of us who is behind it, what was the purpose, why are we spending that do they think the taxpayers just gets to a certain level and we don't care who does those things? where does it come from? did you ever do any? >> you bet i did i was able to get opening up oil exports in a bill exactly like this i was able to get expansion to provide for carbon capture the unfortunate thing is for members, this may be the only way that they can get their priorities the problem is transparency, and if they would change the rules, so you actually got to vote on your bills and didn't have to wait and wait and wait, you

wouldn't have this thing loaded one a bunch of what we would call earmarks and so i think this is really as people are complaining about this, it really is incumbent on leadership to start number one providing transparency, think about this, the largest bill that ever passed congress was handed to members two hours before they voted on it. it's just wrong. and it's wrong to assume that this is the way government has to work. it doesn't have to work this way and it's on leadership, in my opinion, not the members who got their priorities in that bill. >> that's interesting, and it's an interesting take, senator one person's pork is another person's priority. lan yi, overall, the size of this $900 billion is not a small amount, but some people wanted quite a bit more what does someone in your position, how do you view the final product here >> well, you got to look at the accumulated amount of assistance

there's no question this is a significant economic crisis, first of all with the c.a.r.e.s. act, also with two other pieces of legislation that came in the spring and early summer and add on top of that $900 billion. the senator is absolutely right what we need to do going forward. we need to evaluate what is working, what is not remember back in the 0008 financial crisis, when they did that $860 billion peopbill and people thought it was a tremendous amount. $900 billion, some people including the president calling for additional spending before the end of january comes and it's just a tremendous amount of money that we're putting into the economy here of course we need it of course we understand that there are problems that need to be addressed but fundamentally, we've got to figure out what is it we need to do is it more direct assistance is it actually more for health care is it more for education is it more for small businesses or for certain parts of the

economy? we started to see a little bit of recovery for example in transportation, in the december early december jobs release. we'll know some more about the labor markets here coming up first friday in january, so let's take a pause, great thing they were able to get this done. let's figure out what will be needed to help the economy going forward as we continue to deal with this virus. >> senator, how do you view, i'm just thinking about mandan, seventh largest city oil is a big employer, the oil industry, big oil. marathon you have a big refinery there. how do you see the next ten years for north dakota is there a way to transition to what may maybe the biden administration will be prioritizing for your state? >> you know, that's why i fought so hard for carbon capture technologies there is a way for fossils to play a role in the future of our energy, but they also have to

play that role against a backdrop of carbon constraints, and i think they've been loath to that discussion or slow to that discussion. they're coming to that discussion as is agriculture, so i see the future bright. what we do here is we energize the world and we feed the world and we think those are two pretty important things and we think that there is a role to do it in a way that meets the challenges that we have, and i know, joe, you and i have a long discussion about climate but you have to agree that on the horizon, even if you don't believe it's a major problem, it is a major political problem, it's a major public policy problem. >> you said that really well you're right it certainly is a huge political issue. is it catastrophic human caused that you didn't make me agree to that, thank you. i'll not make any comments lanhee, there will be more regulation are you worried about regulations returning in that industry

it's been a boon for us, i don't know how long in the obama administration there was a boon. is it going to take up the slack? >> it's not. you're right, it's not going to completely pick up the slack and i think we have to disabuse ourselves of that notion i am concerned about the regulatory environment going forward. i think that was one of the things we've seen over the last couple of years, regardless of how one views the trump presidency, certainly the regulatory state, the roll of the regulatory state, particularly with respect to energy has been something i think finally over the last couple of years has gotten under control. we have to see what happens in this new administration, what personnel come in. the folks that the president-elect has nominated for example to take some of the key roles, some of the key regulatory roles not just in energy, but more broadly, do cause me some concerns so we'll have to see kind of how that regulatory environment changes,

the way in which those changes impact the economy, impact the ability of people to create jobs during a time when we already see significant economic strain. the regulatory state is something worth watching, not just that but a tax environment as well as something the president-elect committed to changing those are all things that i think people ought to keep an eye on as we move forward to inauguration day >> a couple appointments are interesting, senator are you ready to step back in to government work? i think you'd be good in some capacity and n advising the administration on energy issues. you just want to hang out ain n mandan what do you do bowling? >> we did see a run in the government we could have this conversation. >> right, but seriously, are you concerned at all about some of the appointments that are pretty activist appointments in terms of environmental policy so far

>> you know, what i think absolutely has to happen, because it hasn't happened over the last four years is there has to be a coming together of various sides to talk about what the challenges are i think you know, joe, i spent some time working with major generation and transmission co-op so i understand the challenges of putting intermittent power, renewables on the power fwrid we a grid. we're getting better at it but need the reliable resource of energy so when people reach to turn on their lights in the morning, they come on and we cannot sacrifice that reliability until we know that, and affordability until we know that things will work, and so i think there's a lot of pragmatism i think there is going to be hopefully an entre or reaching out that's going to include everybody in pulling together what we need to do, but climate will be a priority for this administration, and so we need

people in the fossil fuel industry, people in agriculture need a seat at the table, and i think that's going to happen >> lanhee, okay the vaccines are coming and go into the roaring '20s and we know what the fed's been doing for the past year and the past ten years and the government is there going to be a reckoning for this next roaring '20s like we had for the last roaring '20s >> yeah, look, you're right about the fed. we've seen a set of policies here over the last many years that have created an environment, created some stability. if any of that begins to back off, if we begin to see any of this fiscal policy expansion over the last couple of years come home to roost, some of the deficits and debt that senate heitkamp was talking about, those are great concerns for me, not just in the long-term, but shorter than that, intermediate

term we have to think about how to begin to offset some of this fiscal expansion we've seen and i worry about additional policy levers being pulled over these next couple years that make the fiscal condition worse, not better so you know, we've been hiding out here a little bit for a few years. things looked fine in the economy broadly speaking some of you argued for more borrowing. i don't see that as the right answer going forward given where the economy is now, given what our fiscal debt load is going forward, and given more importantly, joe, some of the policy priorities we're hearing about from the incoming administration these should be causes for concern about the long run health, long run fiscal condition that we face >> all right lanhee chen, thank you senator, the airport in bismarck, is that where you'd go if i ask you back here for a meeting? >> joe, you are invited to come and dot show after this pandemic in mandan, across the river

interest our sister city >> i want to i don't think i've been. but there's some beautiful land obviously all around you up there and a lot of, is there snow on the ground right now must be. >> no, i went biking christmas eve. >> you're kidding me there you go with the climate stuff. yeah, you're biking on christmas eve. proves it right there. that proves it right there heidi -- >> joe, you should be concerned i'm biking on christmas eve. >> i know that it get cold in the winter, they tell me it's weather i'm all confused thank you, senator, lanhee chen, thank you. melissa? >> coming up a pulse check on retail ahead of the 2020 shopping season. the en tt anou nt.trdshastd t,ex

welcome back to "squawk box," retail sales rose 3% during the holiday shopping season it was driven by a shift to online shopping which rose 49% from a year ago. joining us now steve sadoff, former chairman and ceo of sachs. good to see you. >> great to see you. >> home improvements, as well as, you know, home goods, decor, up 16%, electronics, appliances were up about 6% from the category wins, can we glean who are the winners and the losers >> well, i think what you can overall glean is that the consumer was pretty healthy. the forecast for the season had been at 2.4%, came in at 3%, an that's about the level of

performance we saw in 2019 during the holiday season. if you would have asked me during the pandemic, whether or not we would be seeing a 3% growth from the consumer, i would tell you that would be very very surprising the biggest surprise, i think, is the health of the consumer. if you look at the winners and losers, clearly the stay-at-home, the hardware, the home improvement were winners and the losers were more of the apparel, the department store categories i would tell you that i think that the big box retailers tended to be the winners when consumers felt safe, they were going into those stores they got used to it. they continued to perform extremely well during the holiday season >> some people say the real super bowl is going to happen during the return season and a lot of retailers are adjusting the return policies in terms of offering curbsidereturns what's different, though, this time around, steve, as you know, is that this time goods will have to be quarantined they might have to be sanitized and that could jeopardize the

resale, especially of seasonal merchandise. who's most vulnerable? who would you be concerned about in terms of the return season and seeing a bulk of those returns, since the nrf is estimating about 10% or so is going to be returned of the goods bought. >> i think the return season will be normal as a percentage of overall i don't see it -- a lot of the returns and the higher percentage returns tend to be in apparel. apparel was the weakest of the category, down 9%. and up tick in gift cards, and they don't hit the books until the consumer bias tuy the produt i think you're going to offset returns by the gift card improvement that you saw i think we're in a very solid performance. you also had inventories that came in very much in line. the retailers didn't order as much this year they were ordering during the depths of the pandemic so inventories are in line,

margins will likely be healthy as a result of it, so even though returns are going to be there, the overall season is looking pretty good as far as i can see. >> what kind of stores should we be concerned about it's often said it's called black friday for a reason. some retailers go out of business, so going into 2021, steve, what more retail bankruptcy should we expect? >> you've already seen a large number of financially stressed companies that went under the neiman marcuss, the jcpenney's of the world, brooks brothers, j crew i think you're going to continue to see apparel companies that are struggling, the center of the mall because the mall is not where the consumer was going you saw department sales down near 10% i think you'll see some of those retailers going under. clearly anything related to home, hardware, electronics are very healthy restaurants, you're going to

continue to see struggle you're going to probably see a reset in the restaurant industry rents are going to have to change i think that in the downtown, the sohoes, the madison avenues of the world, you're going to see resets in terms of the retail landscape. >> we see a lot of boarded up store fronts, that's for sure. steve, thank you mike. coming up, we'll talk to congressman john yarmuth, with the latest on the stimulus bill. the dow up just about 200 points in the pre-market s&p up 2/3 of 1% "squawk box" will be right back. ♪ ♪ digital transformation has failed to take off.

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when they need it the most. with adyen, the payments platform that delivers convenience for all. adyen. business. not boundaries. good morning, president trump approves $900 billion in coronavirus relief but benefits lapse for millions of americans over the weekend as trump waited to sign the bill futures meantime pointing to a positive open on wall street today begins the final holiday shortened week of 2020. >> and china's crack down on payment ant group intensifies. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" here on

cnbc i'm joe kernen along with melissa lee and mike santoli, as you can see becky and andrew are off today. u.s. equity futures have been really trading higher since the news was out about the president finally signing that bill, up 180 points right nowon the dow s&p indicated up 27, and the nasdaq at this hour up about 83. that's about what we have seen, only been on for about an hour, but i think i was there on worldwide exchange as well >> been pretty consistent since the overnight hours. here's what's making headlines at this hour take a look at u.s. and hong kong shares of alibaba an official asked over the weekend, ant group to fix in wealth management business as well as overhaul credit rating business and is one-third owned by alibaba and shareholder is jack ma. it had its $37 billion ipo

suspended after ma criticized regulations in china and said it will set up a quote rectification working group, and follow all rules aliba alibaba announced it was revivaling stock buy back plans. u.s. retail sales grew 3% from about mid october to christmas eve, so roughly the holiday shopping season according to a new spending report from mastercard ecommerce sales jumped 49% as customers stayed home because of the pandemic. make sure to keep an eye on the price of bitcoin today currently trading 26787, just under $27,000 but topped $28,000 over the weekend what else to do on a long holiday weekend, melissa, in the pandemic >> joe, are you still, you know, crypto twitter's hero?

>> demi god. >> that's a perfect word i was looking for that word. >> i don't participate. >> but you speak of the virtues, often, of crypto. >> i don't speak of them often, but i feel -- i'm comfortable with the virtuesi highlighted. i looked at people trying to jump on board, and looked at some of the news when i was really, you know, we talked about it quite a bit, but i had conversion back in mid-2019, and i just needed. you know, i think if anybody reads 10 or 20 pages and no one does it's just the knee jerk reaction, you have heard it, it's a greater fool theory, someone is willing to pay more for it, and there's no inherent value and all that it's people that have never read even the first ten pages of the bitcoin standard just read it, find out what a peer-to-peer or distributed ledger and block chain, any of the things that make it obvious that there's something going on here, the same stuff that paul

tudor jones more recently, he's years after i, you know, figured it out, but i don't know where it goes. i don't know i mean, you listen to those crazy winkelvie, santoli, you think it's rat poison like buffet. >> it's been eight years since i have been bear on anything i don't think it's rat poison. what i find interesting is the new rationale, and you see it come out from established firms, and all it's about is well, it's engineered scarcity, and it's an asset class because it's big enough, and scarce and capped in terms of supply and all of this, and it's true. but i don't think a lot of what's going on right now is necessarily knitting back to the original idea that there's going

to be mass adoption of transaction technology based on this maybe it will. and maybe it doesn't matter. it's only 350 billion in total market cap or something like that right now. >> what's the global financial system >> yeah. >> what's the global financial system you're talking about a company that's a -- >> i think financial assets are like 160 billion, trillion, rather. >> the market cap is an eighth the size of an apple or amazon if people think it's the internet of money, mike, or the amazon of the internet of money, what kind of valuation are we putting on tesla what's tesla's market cap. >> 600 billion. >> what's this, did you say. >> i thought it was 350 or so. >> the key thing you said is if people believe that's all you have to know. >> yeah. >> i think you need to just sdr study up on it, and get a clue about what we're talking about, and how the math actually works, and then you might feel more

comfortable. the greater fool theory. does everyone who buys a stock, aren't they planning on selling it >> money is a made up thing. the fact that it's a made up thing in a medicine if he anife >> put up a dollar sign. . president trump, let's get to this news, signing a $900 billion pandemic relief government funding package into law last night ending days of uncertainty. diana olick joins us now with the details. >> reporter: after breaking with his own party and calling the bill a disgrace, last tuesday, president trump signed it into law last night he is still demanding the $600 checks to individuals be increased. in a statement he said i have told congress i want far less wasteful spending and more money going to the american people in the form of $2,000 checks per adult, and $600 per child.

the bill delivers much needed relief to individuals and businesses it extends unemployment benefits for 14 million americans, gives small businesses, $284 billion in forgivable loans in another paycheck protection program. $30 billion will go toward covid-19 vaccine distribution. 82 billion to education, and 25 billion to rental assistance it also includes a one month extension of the cdc's eviction moratorium as for the checks for individuals, the house is expected to vote on a new bill today to raise that amount and the senate could tomorrow, but in a statement following the bill signing, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell made zero mention of it at all melissa. >> diana, what happens january 31st with the vieviction moratorium one month is not much more it's hard to make plans if you know you're going to be in your home for a month more. >> it's certainly a help to have that extended because 19 million

americans were potentially facing eviction starting on january 1st. what's so crucial here is that $25 billion. that goes toward renters to pay back rent, current rent. it also gets funneled through to landlords and pays back utilities. once they can get this going, the question is going to be how quickly can they get that $25 billion out to renters so they don't face eviction it's going to be a long haul, and likely not going to help everyone it probably needs to be more but it will help a lot of people in the short-term >> diana, thanks joining us now congressman john yarmuth, district of kentucky's third district chairman of the house budget committee. thank you for joining us in the great state of kentucky, very fortunate to be just south of the queen city of cincinnati >> that's right. >> is that how you look at it? >> queen city airport is in kentucky, as you know.

>> it's weird, isn't it. >> a lot of great things about cincinnati are in kentucky, as people who are from there now. i got to stop saying anyway. anyway, you would like 2,000 you figure maybe the house will pass something like that, and we'll see what the senate does how do you expect that to play out? >> i don't think there's any question that we'll pass that this afternoon but, you know, the senate certainly is a different animal, and it's all a question of how much pressure they will be feeling over there i know that obviously they are very much focused on the election in georgia on january 5th. and they feel, and i'm not sure, but they believe that what happens in washington right now in terms of providing relief is going to impact that election. so i would say the odds are better that the senate will do it than they other side would be but still, to try and get that

many votes and to get 60 votes in the senate is very difficult on any occasion. . >> i mean, it does kind of sound like you agree with what president trump was saying when was the last time you agreed with something that he said >> it's very infrequent, i will guarantee you that but the biggest problem here is we certainly have a dysfunctional congress right now, and with this administration, every negotiation we've had is not a two-way negotiation. if that were the case, we would have solved these problems months ago every negotiation is a four or five way negotiation, and one of those partners is very unreliable, very impulsive and unpredictabl unpredictable. so we passed bills in may. we passed a bill in october, and nancy pelosi has been negotiating with secretary treasure mnuchin for months. mitch mcconnell was not involved in those negotiations. neither was president trump. so when you negotiate something

in good faith, and then the president drives the bus over everybody, that makes it very very hard. >> i think that, you know, people out in the country are looking at some of the antics of the house leadership, and wondering what was going on, too, in terms of turning down 1.8 trillion there's plenty to go around. >> let me respond to the 1.8 trillion that was never a real offer. mitch mcconnell called it dead on arrival so, you know. >> what was it, 1.6. there would have been something if she would have moved off of 2.2. >> we would have taken the 1.8 trillion in a minute if it had been structured in a way na ma that made sense. what that was was a blank check to secretary mnuchin very little small business support. all of these categories were not

target instead that bill >> both sides, you know, liability on one side, and then state and local stuff, i mean, we've heard all of that, but it didn't get done, and now you're happy with 900 billion. >> nobody's happy with 900 >> signing it. it's going through >> yeah, well, that's the reality of politics today. that's the best we could get, and while people were suffering and businesses going out of business, we took what we could get, and again, looking at a new administration, feeling that at least we'll have an administration that wants to do much more in the coming months. >> what about earmarks, did you specifically have earmarks we had senator heitkamp on, she blamed it on leadership, said that's the only way the individual members can get their own priorities passed is with earmarks so who's to blame for all the pork people on both sides are

pointing at the other for what's going on can we do it any better than we are now? are there things in this bill that shouldn't be there, congressman? >> oh, i'm sure there are, and i'm sure that not one member of congress has read off 5,593 pages. there are plenty of things in there that shouldn't be in there. over a year and a half ago, we set the overall, the top line discretionary spending limits, and we respected those in this appropriations bill, 1.4 trillion yeah, you know, but that's true of every appropriations bill in every congress i think one of the things that we are looking to do is restore the actual process of earmarks so that there is total accountability and transparency. that's what we really need >> the biden administration will try to do what once it's in in terms of extending or expanding

on what's in this bill what do you think is most important? what do you expect >> well, i think there is a great need for assistance to state and local governments. i talked to my mayor all the time in louisville, and you know, right now at the point of laying off very critical employees. nationally, there's been about a million and a half public service employees laid off a lot of them are teachers so we absolutely do need to assist there, and i think we're going to have to extended unemployment supplement because this was for eleven weeks. it's clear that we're not going to be in a full functioning economy for much longer than that i suspect there's dgoing to be need to do significantly longer extension of the unemployment supplement, and we'll see how small businesses are doing i would have loved to have seen a relief bill targeted at restaurants, certainly independent restaurants. we're losing them right and

left restaurants that have been in business 25, 30 years, and, you know, restaurants, those are the things that give communities a personality, and we've lost a lot of those i would like to see that targeted relief. that doesn't seem to be very popular, at least not popular enough in congress maybe things will change but you need to have a president who provides leadership, and i think donald trump was not leading throughout this relief effort the entire year, and joe biden will be very different on that score and that can make a huge difference if you have a president who actually leads and makes the arguments to the american people about what we need to do at the federal level. >> congressman, thank you. it's good to see you i had -- i really thought kentucky was going to do kentucky or louisville fan i thought kentucky was going to do it the other day. >> you see my red and black

chair, i'm a louisville fan. i route for kentucky on every other day. we finally got them. >> that was really close it was really close. see that one basket went in and out. >> hung on the rim, could have gone either way. >> all right, congressman, thank you. >> take care >> we'll see you, mike coming up, we kick off "squawk's" billion dollar plus club, companies that beat the odds and went unicorn despite the pandemic or increased their evaluations in the midst of it as we head to break, check out shares of at&t wonder woman 1984 scored the best domestic box office opening of the pandemic over the weekend, but at $16.7 million that is low by historical standards. at&t says half the retail subscribers on its hbo platform viewed the movie on chris ntmas day. stay tuned you're watching

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2020 has been a painful year for many biusinesses but not al of them. some tech companies have broken into unicorns, the billion dollar plus club, one is klaviyo, after they were forced to close brick and mortar

locations. they closed a c round in november, bumping evaluation well into the billion dollar club club. joining us is founder and ceo of the $4 billion valued, and ping lee, who led the investment in klavoyo. you started the year at an $800 million valuation, and now you're 4.15 billion or so, and you founded the company back in 2012 how much -- can you give us an idea of how much business has accelerated during the pandemic compared to year's past. >> yeah, of course when we started the year around march, we didn't know what was going to happen. between march and the end of the year, the number of customers, brands, building on klaviyo doubled. we saw thousands of businesses signing up, bringing their offline business online or accelerating ecommerce the number one metric we look at

is the amount of sales generated through our platform that went from $5 billion in 2019 to over $15 billion a share so it tripled. >> and when you take a look at klaviyo, when you were part of that round in november, i wonder how your business has changed in november, as you take a look at the business a year ago, is the acceleration a massive part of the reason why or the total addressable market i would imagine the total addressable market had been fairly consistent that there was a belief that the brick and mortar stores would have to go online, it's just the pandemic accelerated this. >> that's exactly right, melissa. if you look at the trends behind ecommerce they have been very durable and lasting for a long period of time already when we looked at klaviyo, we were believers in the ecommerce market a lot of trends were in place. covid had an acceleration, definitely drove more merchants

online than before but the trend is very durable in our opinion. >> what's the sales pitch to brick and mortar folks out there who want to bring their business online i imagine some of them try to do it on their own. they may try other platforms but what does klaviyo offer them >> we want any business to have the same personalized experience when you walk into a store and get to talk to a real person but bring that online. we help businesses take data and use that data to create personalized experiences you get to do it on the internet scale. we see lots of businesses used to have localized footprints now their customer base can be across the country or even around the world. >> is part of the pitch, andrew, trying to get them to do the klaviyo as opposed to becoming a third party seller on the platform like an amazon or walmart. >> the first era of the internet has been about more selling through marketplaces, you know, the technology just wasn't

there. you know, something that we're really excited about is giving retailers, you know, entrepreneurs, ecommerce m merchants, the power to use their data, what they know about their customer, the digital data and build into personalized experiences. we're giving a lot of the same technology the marketplaces have in, and they get to white label, and put it on their brand and they have a lot more flexibility to show off their unique personality. >> what sort of investments have you made during the pandemic, and has the type of investment changed at all because of it >> not really. if you look at our portfolio, we have had close to a dozen companies that hit their billion dollar plus club as you would say, and most of the companies are providing trends that were preexisting precovid practically. either digital transformation companies, cloud computing, collaboration companies that accelerated due to the work from home movement. a lot of trends we're investing

in pre-covid are durable now obviously covid, as you said earlier, has accelerated and increased the market size. we think the trends will happen even when covid ends hopefully soon, and we go back to a hybrid environment. >> are there exits you're taking a look at and sort of pulling forward, ping, because of the pandemic and because of the premium given to certain kinds of companies, whether it be cyber security or work from home type companies. >> not really. i think a lot of our companies are focused on building business fundamentals we're in a good exit environment right now. if there's a need for liquidity and capital, they will exit the markets right now. i don't think there's a real drive to force things out before they're ready. >> speaking of exits, andrew, i'm curious, are you considering an ipo or do you think about that do you take a look at the different options that are available to start ups whether it be selling themselves to aspects or directly listing, but cut out the middle men on the nysc are you looking at that right

now? >> it's not something we're super focused on right now one of the reasons we liked all of our investors is they're long-term focused. it will be a public company someday, but certainly part of klaviyo's founding was we boot strapped our business to give as much optionalty as possibility >> ping, kinds of exits you see for your portfolio companies, does it necessarily mean a big ipo with confetti falling on the floor of the new york stock exchange and the nasdaq. >> it's a very interesting time for the public markets as you know our companies are evaluating spacs, direct listings, we were involved in the early ones we're exploring the options. it depends on the portfolio company, what avenue to go public i don't think one size fits all.

>> great to speak to you thank you so much for your time, ping and andrew. coming up, one out of a thousand american has now died from covid, and dr. anthony fauci says infections could grow worse thanks to holiday gatherings we'll talk to dr. celine gounder, as we head to break, futures haven't moved much up 184, stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

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relief in dc's stimulus bill means for america's biggest carriers and their employees we'll talk about that. check out shares of boeing, set to resume commercial flights in the u.s. tomorrow after its grounding in march of last year, and you see boeing shares up about 3/4 of 1%. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

president trump signing d.c.'s latest covid relief package and providing billions in aid for the struggling industry let's welcome sarah nelson, international president of the association of flight attendants, thanks for joining us i saw your notes, you were already railing against trump not signing it, but he signed it, so i don't know what to talk about, sarah you're happy with the 600, but, i mean, i can tell you, you

would much rather have 2,000 what was your point, 2,000 wasn't possible so do the 600. >> for us, this really wasn't about the 600. i mean, we absolutely support everyone getting direct checks of 2,000 it needs to be a lot more than that for recovery. but our point here was that this was an emergency relief package for four months to help us bridge to a place where we can talk about a real recovery in the airline industry, what this meant was our jobs, so i've got about half of my union without getting a paycheck, and now that this has become law, they're going to be recalled to their jobs, get a paycheck, connected back to their health care, retirement payments, allowi allowing them to pay taxes, spend back into the economy, and the airlines will be able to put the infrastructure back together that supports the foundation this is necessary for the distribution of the vaccine. all of this is important to put us moving. we had a workers first package

that said the money could go to pay payroll on benefits. a ban on stock buy backs, and cap on executive compensation two years after the relief ends. this is our jobs, our health care, it's a big deal. >> what's the current state you're hearing of the industry are the middle seats still blocked off? are things coming back at all, and is this going to be enough of a bridge to the vaccine to where you think that people being called back now are going to have jobs in a year >> let's be really clear the airlines are still in a tough spot, because even though you see demand climbing back a little bit, almost to 50% now, we're talking about half of that in revenues. this has been a sustained hurt for the airlines, it's not a normal time. this is not a normal economic situation or a situation where the airlines made bad business decisions, and they've got to restructure. we're in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, and until we

get the coronavirus under control, people are just not going to come back that demand is not going to be there as long as the cdc is telling businesses don't travel. we're not going to have the business and be able to recover. the good news is we do have a vaccine and getting people to be recalled to their jobs, distributed as quickly as possible the package passed by congress and signed by the president yesterday has money for distribution of that vaccine and for procurement of that vaccine, testing and a real plan to be able to get in place to start to get this under control we have a really good outlook here, and we have also naturally shrunk a little bit. so the two will start to meet. we may need some additional funds to get us to the summer. this is going to get us to a place where we can assess the problem, have everyone in place to be able to lift our economy again and get us to a place where we can talk about a real recovery. >> you talk to your colleagues and many different airlines, who's done the best job

management, would you say, in serving both the public and its employees, and dealing with the situation, who's done the best, and who's done the worst >> oh, boy, well, that is a tough question let me tell you something. we have worked really really closely with the industry here they have been responsive when we have had no plan from the federal government, they responded in a week with our call for a national mask mandate, at least on airplanes and in airports. and i'll tell you, leading the pack and doing a really good job on safety is frontier. they have been amazing, and we have worked really well with all of the airlines across the board. we've got an organizing campaign at delta air lines, the reason that the airlines have been responsive is because we have a voice in safety. we're 80% union in the airline industry, and integrated into all of those talks with the government, with the airlines and our partners around the world. so we need to get a voice at

delta air lines as well, and that's really important. i have to tell you, what's really concerning for us is that we were starting to see the stress and strain of cost cutting into some bad decisions on public health so this emergency relief is going to allow us to hold the airline's feet to the fire, about having all the layers of safety in place, and those middle seats are nice, and not necessarily a bad thing, but you cannot properly socially distance on a plane. what's really important is the mask policy, the hep pa filtration and air flow better than an office building. service procedures, so some of the airlines have started to put back aisle service that's a no-no that's not a good idea we're going to make sure we have the layers in place so we have a controlled environment, minimize the risk of spread on an airplane, and help to get the vaccine out there so that we can all get back to normal. >> until that happens, do you

ever think you can overcome the trepidation that i think most people still feel about getting on an airplane you can talk about filtration, and all of these things again and again and again, but there's just, as you say, you can't really socially distance, and you can't be there for five, six, ten minutes, you got to be there for the duration of the flight it just is a daunting thing to try to convince people, you know, that it's safe >> that is i mean, the coronavirus is the threat here, and we've got to eradicate that people want to get out, though, they cannot wait to get out, and i believe we saw a study out of ucla that echoes something i have been saying for a long time, what came after the spanish flu, the roaring 20s, and we expect that as soon as people start to get vaccinated, we get this under control, we've got rapid testing going on and a plan to combat this, people want to get out in the air.

the first time there's a business deal done because someone went there in person, all the business travel is going to be back too we have a really good outlook about this, and i think that having a real plan to get the vaccine distributed, get coronavirus under control, we're going to see a return of the airlines, and we're looking good by next summer. >> so you think that even the business travel, that there's going to be a pent up need for that i certainly think it's true with leisure travel, people can't wait to do their favorite things businesses have sort of, they've learned to get by without it, and you wonder how much of that is carried over, even after it's completely safe because they look at their balance sheet or income state, and they go look at this, i didn't need to be spending all that money. i would worry about that. >> they're going to be doing that right now they are making plans on that right now, but nothing replaces going there in person, and we're

going to see that come back. there's just no way to properly do business without having those relationships, those in-person conversations. people want to be able to do that they want to be able to connect, and we're going to see that come back again, i'm sure of it we have seen it over and over again, when travel has been diminished we saw it after 9/11, that business travel will come back what we see is the more people are connected by technology, the more that they want to travel and be together. so we're pretty confident that that is going to come back by this next summer. >> you might be right. i wonder about that. i wonder about the engagement on those zoom meetings where i'm like, if you're there, you know, i wonder if it's 50% engagement, how much, it's definitely not the same, i don't think. >> it's not the same it's not the same. >> i wasn't talking about cnbc's meetings, those i'm like just fixated. >> totally zoned in. >> even better than being there. anyway, sarah, thank you appreciate it.

good luck. >> thank you. >> and melissa, too. >> i wonder, joe, why you always came up with the initials instead of the actual video of yourself. >> on which one? >> on these zoom meetings, and video conference. >> people can have some weird, some very strange, even if you just do the first two letters of both names, it's joe ker you can go with jerk, joe ker. >> good options. exclusive results from cnbc stock reports, and a reminder, you can always watch us live on the go on the cnbc app "squawk box" will be right back. hey, dad!

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constructionist, the final five trading days of the year and the first two of the next year, so began christmas eve and today would be day two, and so far it's adhering to the long-term script which is bullish. we are getting insight into what market participants think next year will be light 3/4 of respondents in the cnbc stock report think interest rates will be higher than they are now by the end of next year. 3% think they will be lower, and 2/3 of respondents think the dow will end 2021 at 35,000, about 16% higher wait, 16%, that is not 16% higher than we are right now are we at 30,000, i guess it's close to that but about 20% think it will be pretty much right where it is. so next year, 58% of respondents think their clients will make their first bitcoin investment, and one-third think they will invest in their first spac i don't know, joe, making their first bitcoin and spac

investments after quite a run. >> i wondered about, you know, there are people buying bitcoin at 28-5. that takes some nerve. >> why if you're a long-term believer, joe. 28 is just one stop on the ride. >> it's just 28,000 useless dollars, if you believe in bitcoin. >> because of the lows every year >> yeah. >> because of the lows every year i don't have to prove anything to anyone on bitcoin do what you want coming up, in fact, they were writing in, enjoy being poor the u.s. will mandate negative covid tests for travelers from the u.k., thanks to the new strain of the coronavirus. after a break, we'll get reaction from dr. celine gounder, a member of president-elect joe biden's covid-19 task force. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. you'll get interviews, original content, and behind the scenes access look for us on apple podcasts or

on your favorite podcast app, and subscribe to the podcast today. and in an emergency, they need a network that puts them first. that connects them to technology, to each other, and to other agencies. that's why at&t built firstnet with and for first responders the emergency response network authorized by congress. firstnet. because putting them first is our job.

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december has been the deadliest month in the u.s. since the coronavirus began. dr. anthony fauci has warned of a post holiday surge of

coronavirus infections, as the country hits a sobering milestone. one out of every thousand americans has died from covid-19 joining us is dr. celine gounder, director of infectious diseases at nyu's grossman school of medicine, she cares for patients she's a biden covid-19 task force member thank you for joining us this morning. we have this kind of parallel tracks that we're traveling on here one is the intensification aninn realtime of the pandemic, and at the same time, we're seeing folks get vaccinated and there's a lot of hope that we can see toward the end of it as a physician, should we be hopeful for ready to hunker down for a lot longer. >> i think it's both/and, i think it is going to be a massive operational challenge,

probably the biggest this country has had to undertake to vaccinate all of its citizens in a timely fashion in the last two weeks, we basical basically averaged about a million doses of vaccine administered per week. we need to be getting to a million doses per day if we're going to reach the president-elect's target of 100 million doses in 100 days. and even then, when you consider these are vaccinations or vaccines that require two doses of vaccination, you have to multiply the american population by two, so that's 660 million doses. divide that by 1 million a day, that's 660 days. so we really need to be ramping up the pace at which we're doing vaccinations >> and how do we achieve that, ramping up the pace. what is needed that we don't already have in action right now? >> well, there's a couple of pieces to it one is the vaccine itself. we do have two vaccines, the

pfizer vaccine and the moderna vaccine which have received emergency use authorizations we do have a certain number of doses promised by the manufacturers, but not enough to cover everybody. we do have some additional vaccines in the pipeline that may soon be receiving emergency use authorization. the j and j and astrazeneca vaccines it's not just about the vaccines you have to also get the vaccines distributed and you need staff to administer the vaccines and when staff are all tied up in icus that are overflowing with sick patients, it's very difficult to siphon off the way to do vaccination. >> we're talking about how long it might take and what's going to be required to get everybody vaccinated with at this .2 doses and maybe there will be a one dose vaccine that speeds things along. before we get to that point, i mean, there's a sense out there that, yes, january, without a doubt is going to be grim in a lot of ways, perhaps the death count lags and we're going to see some unfortunately big numbers there, but as we get

into the spring, and we might see some seasonal falloff, and you have a certain percentage, inkre incrementally of the population getting vaccinated, will that not calm things down in terms o transmission rates. >> that's projecting pretty far off and there's a lot that needs to be between now and then to see things improve we are going to see one of the worst months in this nation's history in january there's no doubt about that. and the cake is in the oven with the travel that has happened over the holidays. it was an interesting conversation you had over the break about airline flying you know, i think it's not just about being on the plane, to be very clear what is concerning is that people are traveling from different places these are people from different household bubbles, who are spending time with one another with different generations of people that is the concern here it's not the sitting on the plane that we're worried about

and that mixing of people is what leads to the spread of the virus. there is no question we're going to see another surge just like we did after thanksgiving. we're going to see another surge in january, and hospitals are going to be facing that when they're already full. >> dr. gounder, i know you're based in new york city just harkening back to the darkest days in new york city and new york state during the pandemic we saw tents in central park, the javits center for overflow, a ship come into the port to service patients are we going to go back to those days in varying forms across the country. what seems to be different this time around, it's not just new york experiencing this massive resurgence, other parts of the country are seeing their darkest days. >> frankly, we are already there, we have patients being treated in hallways, in parking lots you know, i think we are going to be facing field hospital situations in the coming weeks

and months just like in the javits center in new york city unfortunately, while that care is the best that people can provide, that only goes so far if you don't have the doctors and nurses to staff those beds and you cannot -- you can't stand up new doctors and nurses the way you can field hospitals. you can't just create them out of thin air, and so this is going to be the limiting factor here for caring for all of these patient. >> which are, you know, structural and very difficult to get around in the near term. what, if anything, will change in three weeks under president biden. what policy levels can be pulled that haven't yet already been tried. >> well, you will see him invoking the defense production act. the idea there is to make sure that the personal protective equipment, the test capacity and the raw materials for the vaccines are produced in adequate supply so that those aren't limiting steps in all of this and i think you're also going to

see a major increase in testing. you're going to see a lot more testing, because if we don't see those invisible, so to speak, the mild and asymptomatic cases of disease if you don't know they exist, it's very difficult to prevent spread from those people you are going to see a big increase in testing. we're also going to see an increase in genomic surveillance, which is where you track the slowly accumulating mutations in the virus genetic material, and that allows you to pick up on new variants like the one that has been picked up in the uk, like in south africa, and we did not do that routinely. we have the technology we just chose not to spend the money on that kind of public health surveillance. >> dr. gounder, thank you very much for bringing us up to date on all of these issues appreciate it. coming up, mick mulvaney, the former white house chief of staff to president trump will weigh in on the president's

signing congress's $900 billion coronavirus aid bill don't go anywhere. "squawk x"ilbeig bk.bo wl rhtac

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good morning, four trading days left in 2020. stocks pointing to gains at the open, with major indices trading near record highs. president trump reversing course, signing a covid relief bill days after he called it a disgrace the president's former chief of staff mick mulvaney will join us straight ahead. >> and chinese tech stocks plunging, sinking shares of alibaba today. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning, and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with mike santoli and melissa lee. becky and andrew are off today and u.s. equity futures are beginning the post christmas holiday week up about 187. i guess this is the second day of the santa claus rally now, if

you're really really serious about language according to santoli, so we're in day two christmas eve was day one. we have a few more left. we'll see whether it continues we are seeing it play out right now. treasury yields should get interesting next year, if you want to wait until then. the ten-year at this point is at .96 that's one that i'm very interested to hear everyone's prediction on where the ten-year goes santoli said 1.6 was his prediction at some point we'll breakthrough we're not far today. maybe it will happen this week. >> i don't recall a 1.6 prediction mike santoli. >> that carries some weight. >> if we're talking about bond market targets i sometimes get confused i don't care what you think. >> the cincinnati accent or something. let's take a look at where the

s&p 500 sits right now it becomes an orderly up trend all of these swings back and forth, a lot of chop ahead of the election a very kind of orderly, and upward grinding. 2% year to date, following the seasonal tendencies very well right here the only question has been all along that you have very frothy parts of the market. not so much evident in the s&p 500 overall, but definitely in parts of the nasdaq, ev spacs, and yet the s&p has had a very broad rally, and has been in good shape even if people are getting overaggressive on the sentiment side the china stock, cracked down, this is the china version of the qqq, so basically chinese tech sector against the u.s. nasdaq tech sector. on a year-to-date basis, china outperforming, starting a couple of months ago, this has been some pressure on the chinese

tech market. alibaba is not in the index. you have tents and a lot of other stocks that are sort of getting maybe a little bit of the after effects of that effort, against ant financial and alibaba. >> that's true all right, mike, good summary there. let's move to the story moving the markets this morning president trump signing the government spending package into law last night averting a shut down, and delivering aid amid a worsening pandemic joining us is mick mulvaney, former white house chief of staff. mick, it's good to see you happy holidays hope you had a good christmas. so what was president trump trying to accomplish with the posturing of saying that he wasn't going to sign it, and he wanted $2,000. who was he aligning with it seems like the democrats are the ones that are going to vote on that today, and try to move it forward what was the rationale there, what was he thinking.

>> good morning, happy new year, i think what he was trying to do was send a message that he wasn't happy with the bill this is not at all unusual keep in mind, the whole bill is $2.3 trillion. i think it's actually a little bit bigger than that anytime you have a bill that's that large, you're not going to like any particular part of it people have focused a lot on the covid relief, and the 600,000, versus 2,000 there's about $1.5 trillion in other spending in the government funding part of the bill the reason you get massive bills is congress is supposed to break those down, 12 bills during the year, but they are lazy, and they don't they throw it all together at one bill at the end of the year, and essentially challenge any president to either sign it or shut the government down joe biden is going to face the same difficulties next year. i think what the president was doing is throwing down a marker for his next political race, and look, i don't think this is enough money i happen to disagree with that i think you have the opportunity to break it into smaller pieces. yeah, we had some bad economic numbers in the last 30 days but

good numbers before that there's no reason to absolutely go big right now, you can sort of take this month by month. i think the president was sending the message that congress is broken, and it is. i think a lot of us were relieved he did sign the bill. i don't think there was a plan if he didn't, but i don't think he's happy about it. >> we have heard even jay powell say this is not the time to be counting every penny, and to be making sure every penny or dollar goes to where it's directed we can overshoot, and that's what we're going to do during the pandemic still, 900 billion is a lot of money, and we have started revisiting all the earmarks and the pork that was there, and i know you've seen a lot on twitter. people, maybe the politicians might not read what's in the bill or they hope people don't read, but people do read, and there's some crazy stuff in there, mick. you were in congress a long time is that the way individual members get their priorities

acted upon, kind of this underhanded kind of a porky way that the rest of us look at it and say this is not the way to do things? >> yeah, to jay powell's comment about not counting any penny, i would be curious to know when we have counted every penny for the last 40 years, but i guess we can put that aside for another day. it seems we're always to the point where we can't afford not to spend money put that aside for a longer discussion let's talk about how these bills get done, how they get passed. what you're talking about is the things in the bills are slipped in by staff members, slipped in at the last moment, and 95% of the members of congress don't know about them, and won't have the opportunity to know about them because the bills are too long this bill is probably going to run north of 2,000 pages if not more. you had john yarmuth with comments about earmarks that i actually agree with for a variety of reasons you have effectively got earmarks where powerful star

members, committee chairman can put stuff in without telling anybody about it maybe they find it, maybe they don't. what yarmuth is talking about going to a system, if you want an earmark, money spent in your district in a particular way, you put your name on it so anybody can see it you do it in a certain amount of time up front. it does bring a certain transparency that was never the problem with earmarks, joe, and the reason we got rid of them 15 years ago was because they were being used to buy and sell votes if you voted for a bill, then you've got your earmark. if you didn't, you get didn't your earmark, and that leads to an unbelievabdesirable outcome. if you say my district, we don't need money at this road, we need money at this road, i'm willing to put my name on it, that can prevent the fraud and abuse. count this as one of the rare times i agree with john yarmuth, the democratic chairman of the budget committee. >> the new york post is trending. >> i saw that.

>> you did >> yeah. >> and a lot of comments are like when you lose the post, pointing out that it's the president's favorite paper, that's what it says, stop the insanity, lost the election, here's how to save your legacy what do you think about that whal what would your comments be, what are you telling the president? >> you lose the post and it's time to step back, wait a second, is this playing out the way we wanted it to in keep in mind, in this business, as in so many businesses, as yours is, joe, perception is reality. and if that's the perception of the last 30 days that the new york post put out today, clearly things have not gone the way the administration wants it to go. there was something in the article i agreed with. i agreed with a good bit of it the thing i agreed with was the importance of the georgia senate race i'm not sure what they're telling him inside the building. the number one thing the president can be doing right now, not only to secure his

legacy but also to help defend himself for the next two or four years is to make sure the republicans keep those two seats in georgia if the democrats take the senate, i don't know if the president or his current advisers are telling him, the level of difficulties he's going to have for the next two or four years. the best thing he can do right now is to engage in those senate races and put any doubt to bed about whether or not he wants his folks to show up to vote for senators perdue and loeffler he needs those two races that needs to be a priority. if the democrats take the senate, there's zero chance of any congressional hearings into what happened in the 2020 elections. if the republicans keep the control of the senate, he actually has a chance to get to the bottom of what actually happened he's not had that chance because they have lost so many of the lawsuits that we have talked on this show about, my thoughts about the legal team, not very encouraging but he does have a chance to get to the bottom of it, and make sure it doesn't

happen again, if it happened this year, if the republicans control the senate i think the post got that in a way that not a lot of folks have understood yet, and i hope the president does get a chance to see that article. >> it's tricky down in georgia because obviously the state is changing, you know, every year it gets maybe a little bit bluer and demographically in what's happening, but there's a lot of people that are still georgia. what you think of georgia. where they want the senators down there to take the president's side they're still loyal, completely loyal, to president trump, so it's a fine line to try and walk down there, what those senators should be saying about the president. and i'm not sure how you galvanize the people that you need if you're a republican. i'm not sure what the right strategy down there is >> it certainly helps that the president comes out and says, look, i may have disagreed i know that senator perdue and loeffler voted this way. i didn't like that particular vote but nine times out of ten, we are going to be on the exact

same page. not everybody votes with everybody else 100% of the time in washington, d.c life doesn't work like that. i love my wife to death. she doesn't agree with me 100% time you can be powerful political allies with senator perdue and loeffler georgia might be trending more purple but that happens in more states ohio is trending more red than it was ten years ago i'm not worried about those trends because georgia is still a center right state these should still be 52 to 48 elections. 51-49 elections. people forget senator perdue won the race, he just didn't get the 50% plus one rule that doesn't exist in a lot of states but exists in florida. it's still a republican state. what could go wrong is if trump supporters think it's in the interest to stay home. it's not it's in president trump's 100% interest to win those races and

he and the team need to get that to the voters. >> thanks. >> thanks, joe see you soon hopefully. bitcoin crossed 28,000 over the weekend. it is now trading slightly higher here, up 3% or so 27,287 we'll talk about some potential regulatory head winds for the cryptocurrency next. as we head to break. check out shares of astrazeneca. the covid-19 candidate is believed by researchers to be effective against the new variant of the virus that drove a spike of cases in britain. that vaccine is expected to win approval from u.k. regulators this wk.ee stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc save hundreds on your wireless bill

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welcome back to "squawk box. futures firmly higher. the s&p looking to be up by 28 points dow by 187 the nasdaq looking to be up by 103. in our cnbc quarterly stock report, we asked whether their clients were more likely to be the first options contract, bitcoin or spac in the new year, and 58% said bitcoin bitcoin, in fact, rallying over the weekend and the christmas holiday. in this boom market it's facing a crack down from regulators seeking to improve rules for crypto wallets and stable coins.

joining us is circle ceo, jeremy alair. >> great to be mere. >> the proposals came out, we did see the record hit over the weekend. joe, mike and i were talking act the drivers of the bitcoin and the rally this time around, and i was wondering what do you think it primarily is? >> i think the drivers are things we have all been talking about for a long time, which is that institutional capital, i think macro investors who are focused on what is taking place with sovereign debt, what is taking place with the debasement of currencies, these are major considerations as people think about new forms of stores of value, people often make a reference to bitcoin has using market share from gold, so you can see the charts and see how that looks i think actually what we're seeing ultimately is there's $100 trillion of sovereign debt, and that's been nominated in

currencies and one has to ask themselves if those are the instruments for the next 50 years. >> you mentioned the debasement of currencies, and that's one reason why the likes of a square and micro strategy are moving their cash balances to bitcoin this year, and in a very big way, as the creditor of a stable coin pegged to the u.s. dollar, where does that put the u.s. dollar coin if one of the reasons bitcoin is rallying is the dollar depreciating. >> look, there's investment assets, and there's, you know, transaction mediums, and our belief has always been that the predominant, you know, reserve currencies would best be represented as fiat digital currencies and, that, you know, at least for the foreseeable future we're going to receive our salaries in currencies, and buy cookies and milk and pay rent whether it's something that's going to price a bond or it is

going to be used as a day-to-day payment, we need these traditional, you know, liabilities of central banks to be represented as digital currency forms that's what's given birth to stable coin arrangements like usbc, and those are exploding, right, grown like 600% this year, and we're in the early stages we expect ultimately trillions of dollars of value in currency coins. >> is there a concern that the place in the ecosystem will be displaced, especially when you look at china which just launched the pilot program by the pboc, to give residents digital wan. if the fed decided to enter a pilot program and conduct that, where does that leave u.s. dollar coin or the role of a stable coin? >> if you look right now, the

attention, you know, coming out of the white house with the presidential working group coming out of the g20, g7 who built a set of policy recommendations around global stable coins, and the proposed forthcoming stable coins from dm i think the here and the now is that private sector actors, acting in consortium are building standards, and building the rigorous governance that's needs, technical infrastructure that's needed, the security models, compliance models. there's an enormous amount of work to build this out as a legitimate market infrastructure, and it's growing really really fast there's research that goes on within, you know, government agency, but i think if you look at the history of electronic money, at least in the west, it is a history of private sector actors, getting ready to build started and now stable coins i think the predominant form of

digital currency, fiat digital currency that we're going to see widely circulated and being used is likely going to be driven by these kinds of arrangements. over the long run, there has to be some, the federal reserve or the treasury department, they want to set supervisory standards, they care about safety and soundness, underlying risk management, and in fact a lot of the things that have been put forward by the white house last week around stable coins and what they need, these are the standards that these are already building. >> circles effectively that bitcoin will never achieve true functionality in terms of being a transactional digital currency in order to exist, don't you need bitcoin to be a store value and not be very easy to use, even though square and paypal are trying to make it much easier to use? >> not at all. i mean, we're interested in supporting digital currencies that are widely used in payments

and settlement that are widely used, and i think one of the most significant things we're seeing, for example, with stable coins is the programmable money, this money can be written into software, yield markets, interest rate markets, governed by machines, not banks those are powerful breakthroughs. if the denominator wants to be bitcoin, that's great. a digital currency, bank like institution, we're very open minded on that i think in the short to medium term when we think about, you know, hundreds of billions of people, you know, making payments or financial institutions denominating financial contracts with crypto, we think it's more likely for that period, are going to be stable coins. >> jeremy, thanks for the conversation always great to speak with you. >> thank you. >> jeremy allaire of circle.

wonder woman 1984 debuting at the box office and on streaming over the weekend we'll have details straight ahead. as we head to a break, check out shares of tesla. transport minister said tesla plans to begin operations in 2021, beginning with sales and potentially expanding into manufacturing there. you see tesla indicated higher by about .7%, a little ove$6r 66 a share. "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back to "squawk box. fuc futures up 180 points on the dow. nasdaq up triple digits, 103, and the s&p up 27 and change "wonder woman 1984" topped the weekend box office with 16.7 million in ticket sales that's low by historical standards but is the best debut for any movie since the pandemic began. the movie was released in theaters, and on the hbo max streaming platform on the same day, hbo max parent at&t, said nearly half of its retail subscribers streamed the movie on christmas day at&t also said it is fast tracking a third installment of the wonder woman franchise, and it's been a while, but i don't

remember orwell saying a word about wonder woman was it in brave new world? do you know? there's nothing in 1984 about wonder woman. >> he didn't see everything coming. >> i guess not big brother, right that never happened. try talking about something on your phone try talking about espresso in front of your iphone >> then you get ads for beans all day long that's how it works. >> it's happening now where it's like scary now i'm thinking, you know, it might be psychic, really, i do i'm not sure what to think. >> calling for ads for beans on your phone right now, just for talking about it. >> i talk about like incontinence or catheters or something. actually, maybe someday. who knows. chinese tech stocks plunging we're going to talk about the regulatory crack down.

as we head to break, here's a k loo -- a look at airline stocks viter president trump signed the cod relief bill. that's coming up when we come back ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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shares of alibaba fell nearly 8% in hong kong overnight. the stock was down about 8% in the previous session last thursday as well after chinese regulators announced a probe into moe notary publnopolistic . alibaba owns about a third of ant group. in a statement, the central bank said ant group lacked sound governance, defied compliance requirements and said it used market position to exclude rivals and hurt the rights and interests of consumers other chinese tech firms including tencent, and snip fell sharply. joining us is senior technology analyst at jeffreys, and walter isaacson, professor at tulane university, distinguished fellow ot aspen institute, and cnbc

contributor. good morning to you both walter, to start on a big picture percentage we see what's going on with the chinese government, this adversarial move against alibaba and ant financial. do you read it as a specific instance of a company that overstepped. jack ma perhaps got in the bad graces of the authorities. is there something more we should be concerned about in governments kind of confronting technology companies >> i think it's the latter i think you're seeing around the world, whether it's a european union. surprisingly now, the chinese government, and state attorneys general, the department of justice and others in the united states, looking at all sorts of ways on a wide variety of subjects, whether it be anti-trust on google, facebook, perhaps amazon or things like section 230. and i think this is going to change the entire landscape, especially because whether you look at the house judiciary

subcommittee or the republican states attorney general, or the democratic ones, they're all converging with multiple attacks on technology company, especially when it comes with the concentration of power, you're all just joking about how you think the phone or amazon echo is sucking up data. the sucking up of data is what leads to the concentration of power and the big players and if they use that leverage to prevent other companies from competing, whether it's in china, europe or the united states thar states, that's going to be a problem. >> how does this situation inform your assessment of, you know, the valuations of these companies and the prospects for them we have lived with the threat for a while. i know you've talked about this a lot. at this point, we're going back and looking at, you know, old e-mails that suggest tas et alliances between facebook and google, and looking to unwind

approved mergers of the past is it a lot of talk and fonoiser do we have something to be concerned with. >> we think it's a side show for investors. it has not had an impact amazon performance, facebook, google, fantastic performance, there's been a shift toward the names in software as this has happened i think you have also seen other names that are underneath the regulatory overhang, such as snap do very well. i think investors are repositioned away from a potential issue as we go into 2021 but as we have been saying for quite some time, we do not believe there's going to be major regulatory breakups, and if we're wrong, the good news is investors will make more money because the value of some of the parts is greater than the whole. amazon, aws, you have software multiples trading today could

theoretically trade at an incredible multiple you're not getting today. you look at companies like snowflakes, a number of others that are trading at 50 to 100 times revenue. we're not endorsing these multiples but the market is right now, and we think, again, you can make the chase for the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. >> short of breakups, do the companies stay in some kind of defensive sans, whether it's not doing acquisitions they might have otherwise done or really is it about the business practices themselves microsoft wasn't really broken up but was kind of caught up in these issues for some time. >> i think if you look historically. >> i'm sorry go ahead yeah, i think from a business perspective, you're not going to see a tremendous large m and a happening. keeping microsoft's largest deal this year is in their small subset, which is gaming, go directly in the core of collaboration or communication,

you know, in the core where everyone thought they would go this year. we think they'll stay away from the big areas and again, i think it's nmore of an issue of both sides coming together, and not necessarily any break up that's going to happen going forward. >> walter, what, if anything, might change about the emphasis, the tone, the priorities in the biden administration chlgt as you mentioned, both parties have reason to take exception to some of the behaviors theory section 230 is something that's been more driven by the president. more financial issues and market power, perhaps the democrats are more concerned with. >> i think both parties are concerned with anti-trust, and i agree that there's probably not going to be a break up, whether it's a biden administration, eight years from now, there will be a break up. the only two times in history, standard oil and with the at&t break up

what you will have is what's happened with microsoft and others, which is the threat of break up or the threat of antitrust, they have lawyers in every meeting, and so microsoft doesn't totally embed things like, you know, starch or social media into their network because they wanted the antitrust investigation and things like google get to arise. i don't think this is going to break down totally on partisan lines. i think in the long run there's going to be a whole lot of sort of constrained behavior. you talk about snap, its valuation going up a lot its valuation is going up a lot because it used to be facebook would crush anything like that, but now they're probably lawyers sitting at facebook meetings and saying, hey, if you really do that to snap, that's going to be a problem. so i think just the process of antitrust is probably helpful to competitive processes.

>> among the companies that you cover, have any, to your mind, been, you know, diskouncounted a degree or had this overhang, create an opportunity that wouldn't otherwise be there for investors, whether it is alphabet or facebook or amazon >> i think facebook is the one this year that has had that. you look at advertising budgets were obviously impacted. that partly was fundamental, but then you have the regulatory overhang the number one question we get on the internet group is what's going to happen with regulatory, and facebook is the number one talked about story google not close behind. so we think facebook and google, as you go into 2021, have a nice tail wind, as it relates to ad dollars snapping back, versus stay-at-home, watching netflix all day, great stories, we think the stocks do well there we do think there's a little bit more of a snap back that happens for facebook and google, given

that the comy opens in 2021. >> walter, can you update us on your jab did you find out, did you get the placebo or do we know what you got? did they tell you finally? >> well, i'm in the pfizer trial, and i opted when the hospital contacted me to stay in the trial and stay blinded for the time being >> oh, geez. >> i go back and have my blood drawn in a few weeks, and after that, if i have been in the placebo group, they're going to do it. i figured trying to break in line, or figure this out, i'm just going to go through the trial, stay blinded through early february and then do whatever the procedures of that trial do >> you still taste, jambalaya, can you still taste that >> yeah, and when i sit on the balcony behind me, i can smell the shrimp being boiled at the corner restaurant, so that's my only covid test.

>> exactly darn, i thought you would have an update for us any -- you didn't feel anything a day after, any sortness eness not. >> i didn't feel like i got the real thing, but. >> did you get the second one yet? >> months ago. >> walter, we appreciate your faithful contribution to science and brent, thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> thank you. coming up, terrible football, though, walter, i lost money, though, again tulane anyway, it's return season for retail talking about the new challenges this year with nationwide shipping delays. disinfection requirements and many people staying away from stores as we head to break, check out u.s. equity futures up about 190 on the dow

tis the season for returns the pandemic is changing the way shoppers send items back, and it's impacting retailers post holiday business frank holland joins us now with more >> good morning, melissa returns on the day after christmas, 230% higher than the average in 2020, according to returnly a new report makes the case that december 26th is the busiest day of the year for returns, as opposed to the conventional wisdom that it's a day in

january. and buying and returns habits, underwear and intimates seeing a 134% increase in returns year over year from black friday and cyber monday sales furniture up 36% these are categories where customers, they're still kind of adjusting to shopping online, according to the ceo of returnly his research shows that work from home is a major factor in the nearly 100% increase in return times >> instead of being five to ten days to return the items, shoppers are now taking up to 20 days to return merchandise they change their habits, they no longer go to the office and commute and run errands as they go to work. >> according to cbre, the average return loses 60% of its value because of the time it takes to get back on the shelf and the logistics cost and director to consumer brands, they have actually increased repeat buyers and gained market share because their reverse logistics are more efficient, and their returns are faster

melissa, back to you. >> what's different also, frank, is a good set of returned need to be quarantined and sanitized. i'm thinking of the big spike that you cited in returns of underwear and intimates. i would hope that they are quarantined and/or sanitized, but that certainly changes the game for the retailers in terms of what they are able to sell again. >> absolutely. it's definitely harder to pick out things that are that particular online. furniture is another thing because you see the measurements online, it doesn't mean it's going to fit just right in your house. sometimes when you get it home, it doesn't look the way i thought it was going to look, doesn't fit the way i thought it was going to fit. >> joe, i know you're thinking the furniture and underwear and intimates, same problem. >> i was thinking that, you know, if you don't like something because you don't like the style is one thing, but if you have tried it on for a while, and then you're sending it back, frank. >> joe, you're tipping your hand just because you buy underwear online, and try it on and send

it back doesn't mean the rest of us do. that seems more like a personal preference thing. >> i don't own a pair of under wear that you would refer to as intimate i do not >> by nature by nature, it is intimate, joe think about it >> oh, like big saggy boxers, santoli, you got anything intimate. >> i've got nothing to add in this conversation whatsoever. >> joe, we're learning too much. save it for 2021 >> boxers, i'll answer that. boxers, yeah, boxers you have a problem with that we've got serious stuff to do the brother of one president-elect biden's closest advisers landing amazon as a new client jeff racheti, the brother of, recently secured a lobbying contract with amazon

joining us is the author of the city, madmoney.cnbc.com political finance reporter, brian schwartz i don't know you so i'm not going to ask you boxers or briefs let's stick to the story and tell us what you know, and then whether we've gotten a comment from anyone on whether there's a problem here or whether it's just perceived, as you know, looking a little weird. >> thanks for having me. appreciate it. here's what we know, you know, cnbc discovered this lobbying disclosure report that shows that jeff rashetti, the brother of joe biden's white house counselor is going to be lobbying for amazon, one of the big tech giants. the focus is going to be partially on issues pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic and the c.a.r.e.s act. and so, you know, we haven't heard anything official from amazon, but jeff is not planning

to lobby his brother but these people have not ruled out in conversations with me that his clients, by the way, he has seen an uptick in clients over the past year while joe biden was running for president against president donald trump, going to lobby the white house, from ethics attorneys could be a pr problem for the incoming administration and at worst could be ethics hurdles also for biden and his team because clearly there will be question marks here as to how much influence jeff ricchetti is having as his brother is key adviser to biden. >> we know president-elect biden has meant made comments about amazon i don't know what that means they don't pay their taxes i think they do pay their taxes. it's just the taxes come to a certain number because of the way the existing law is.

that doesn't mean that president-elect biden couldn't somehow try to pass some legislation that would change that law some type of alternative minimum tax or something. >> you're 100% right that's it right there. if you want to take the comments that were on "squawk" in may that he had in the interview with you guys, you have to also take that and kind of look at the bigger picture clearly there's going to be scrutiny on big tech from this administration maybe not right away i know in the first hundred days a lot is going to be focused on covid relief and things of that nature big tech, target is going to be on the back of google, facebook, amazon and others clearly with this administration as it was at certain times to be fair during the trump administration as well so, you know, that is why people like ricchetti with ties are getting hired by the likes of amazon, and why they're seeing an up tick in clients as we go along here. >> it couldn't be much worse for amazon than the last four years, right, but wow, thinking about

"the washington post" and their treatment of joe biden, i don't think they need any lobbying i mean, oh my god, amazon probably got a picture of the amazon logo in the oval office for joe, right no, i'm kidding. that's, you know what, should have said commentary they should have flashed the commentary when i said that, right, brian >> that's your point, joe. i think it will be interesting to see how everything plays out as we move forward. >> you've got some important stuff, though, some of those contracts, remember, that have been going back and forth, you know, remember it was oracle versus aws versus microsoft. is that it >> that's right. that's what we saw under the trump administration the back and forth regarding the jedi contracts at that time, when you look at that, amazon did hire, at least one, and i'm sure many more, one big lobbiest named jeff miller

who was very close to the president and still is he's one of his key fundraisers during the campaign, and so, you know, this is a pattern by them, and i think i could say many other big tech companies by hiring key players that are close to people in the past, at this point, the past two administrations the past two administrations. that's kind of how it's been and it's interesting to see how this all plays out with how much influence this has >> okay, great, thank you for bringing that to us, brian >> thanks, joe >> we'll see you later. coming up, the dow trading near a record high after rewo d rebounding from the march lows the moves you should consider straight ahead. do not miss tonight in addition to 5:00 a special bonus edition of "fast money" at 6:00 p.m. we'll take your questions and answer them live on the air. that's actually all week

starting on "tast mfast money." "squawk box" will be right back. modern or reliable. we want both - we want a hybrid. so do banks. that's why they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach helps them personalize experiences with watson ai while helping keep data secure. ♪ ♪ from banking to manufacturing, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. ♪ ♪

according to cnbc quarterly stock report expect the dow to finish next year around 35,000 and our next guest says we could see more cyclical and value sectors for the first time in 13 years. joining to discuss what the move could mean is brenda the chief investor officer great to have you with us. >> thanks for having me. >> part of that rotation because you already started doing that in your portfolios that you manage is part of that a rebalance because tech outperformed so greatly this year? >> i think what we're seeing is this interesting dynamic and back when we saw it was 1999 and 2000 and a lot of difference business between then and now and we have this technology where you can argue we're seeing peak earnings growth this year with so much pulling forward of adoption and meanwhile you have other groups

many in the industrials, material sectors, for example, that are really experiencing earnings so we think about that shift happening. i think it's absolutely possible that we see a more meaningful shift. we already started to see it happen here in the fourth quarter but we have a scenario in 2021 and 2022 where those more cyclicly oriented sectors are earning more and if we look back to the late '90s and early 2000s something happened then for different reasons but i think we could see that lead to significant outperformance of those more cyclicy. >> what areas do you like right now? would you go into energy, forstance. what time frame are we talking about? you can go into energy with the belief that it will bounce back but may not be a longer term play.

>> we would agree. the long-term story for energy is tough but in the short term, we absolutely could see a turn especially because over 50% of oil consumption is driven by transportation and i think when we think about a rebound happening within transportation, that could absolutely drive more demand for oil globally than we're currently seeing but some of our favorite names are really in areas that have ae aerospace exposure honeywell is one of our favorite names here very high quality company through no fault of their own and a third of their business is driven by aerospace and that is significantly impacted and the company is still cash flow positive they're inquisitive and have a strong balance sheet and we think that aerospace business will come back when air travel resums and we think double-digit upside from that name.

>> you also like boeing in terms of aerospace exposure. do you expect we'll get back to the premax levels in the 300s? >> we still think, you know, we think the easy money has been made and boeing here from the bottom where all it took is a shift in sentiment to really get the stock going. but since then we have seen positive news with the backlog with recent orders from alaska and ryan air now you could argue about the profitability of those orders but they're still going in the right direction. we still think double-digit upside from the stock and then the stock here that recognized that a lot of that easy money has already been made but still like this name just given its positioning and the overall market and think they will certainly benefit when air travel resumes in a more meaningful way >> brenda, wondering about the market wide implications if we do, in fact, get this continued rotation into cyclical and value stocks not only a smaller part of the

overall indexes like the s&p, but presumably investors don't have this open-ended sense of how much they're willing to pay up for their earnings over time. in other words, we saw the faang stocks go from 25 to 30 to 35 and it's unclear if we'll see that in industrials and material-type stocks what does that mean for the overall market, do you think >> well, i think these are interesting dynamics here and i wouldn't completely abandon the technology group it is significant and when comparing it to the late '90s early 2000s incredibly more profitable than it was then and one could argue that, you know, technology has only become a more meaningful part of our lives and i don't think this, there's a call out there that this could last for a decade or more shift to value. that i do not agree with we're really of the mindset that this could be, you know, a 12 to 18-month rotation that happens and simply because you have this

crazy dichotomy of companies close to peak earnings growth or earnings growth levels and when we look out to 2022 and 20223, you could see the overall growth rates decline sequentially meanwhile these other groups you'll see earnings accelerate for that reason primarily we do think that we could see this shift and it's one that we haven't seen for so long that many peepinople investing todayv not experienced it, but we do think it could be meaningful and more of a surprise than anybody really anticipates >> could be the year value investors are waiting for for so long thank you, we appreciate your time brenda vengeilo. >> yes, final check on the markets. you're coming back tomorrow, you both >> i'm back tomorrow >> all right 190 on the dow 121 on the nasdaq. s&p indicated up about 30

points i can ask you both, do you think that the bills could sweep the series this year with the patriots or do you think the patriots show up tonight i'm just wondering >> what are they going to show up for >> because they just do for belichick. >> you're right. >> i don't know. that's my question make sure you join us tomorrow "squawk on the street' is next goodern morning to "squawkn the street." carl and jim both have the morning off. let's give you a look at futures. you heard joe just talking about and looking for an up open when we begin tradesing a half hour from now the road map begins with the stimulus reversal and the president signing the covid relief bill just a few days after saying he had a lot of problems with it >> then a timeline to normal