astrazeneca jab for emergency use. we'll go live to london for a look at how this vaccine is different from the pfizer and moderna shots. and it has been one year since a doctor first warned of a mystery virus emerging in wuhan. we'll go live to beijing for a look at how life has changed since then it has changed here as well. today is wednesday, december 30, 2020, and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box." i'm becky quick along with yoe kernen andrew is out today. we've been watching the equity futures and take a look, we were down a little bit yesterday, of

course thissetting new highs and this morning we're off to the races once again. dow up by about 123 points s&p 500 up by about 18 and then the nasdaq is indicated up by 50 points as we creep toward the end of the year let's also take a look at the treasury market. you will see that when it comes to the ten year, it looks like the yield right now is sitting at just about 0.953% so joe, once again teasing us thinking maybe we'll get to 1% >> yeah, next year we can count on that i don't know you know, the over and under on that, i'd say it is pretty likely we get there. 1.6? i think santelli said that >> that was santelli >> yeah. i think that's what he said. i don't want to speak for him. >> i think you're right. >> the difference between 1.3 and 1.6 doesn't seem that great, but with what we've seen in recent years, that is monumental >> 300 basis points.

>> so you are here what is today, wednesday >> you're here >> yeah, i'm here. >> so we have today and tomorrow >> so you had christmas. did you notice a difference between like working and then not working yesterday and -- it is not that much difference from home, is it, except for sleeping, but you can't sleep in either >> sleeping helps. >> an extra 45 minutes >> a couple hours. >> a couple hours. breaking overnight, this kind of interesting, the uk remember first pfizer, and now first with the astrazeneca covid vaccine developed in conjunction with the university of oxford and okayed for emergency use joumanna bercetche is joining us now from london. i guess this will add to the supply it is a little bit different what can you tell us >> it is a ground breaking day for the uk and the world the uk prime minister boris

johnson just tweeted out calling it a massive triumph of for british science. but there are a few differences between this vaccine and the existing on the market, specifically pfizer and moderna. this is actually a viral vector vaccine which basically means that it can be stored at much higher temperatures so at normal refrigeration temperature. it also means that it can be scaled up very quickly in terms of mass production and to that point, astrazeneca today has said that they have been speaking to some of their global partners about the rollouts of up to 3 billion doses of this vaccine in 2021. so that has huge implications for lower income and middle income countries and the rest 69 of the world the uk has ordered 100 million doses, pretty much to cover the entire population excluding children and are expecting to receive as many as 4 million doses in the next couple days

and they are ready to start distributing today and tomorrow, sos jabs can start as soon as january 4. and just a quick word on the government scheme to roll out the vaccine, this is a two dosage regimen so typically there would be a four week interval between the first dose and the second dose, but what the uk government is saying, they want to give as many people as possible that initial dosage so as many inoculations as they can roll out in that particular period before giving the second dosage this is so that as many people as possible get the baseline immunity, wait 12 weeks and then receive the second dosage. that is part of a new strategy and something we've not seen before but certainly very, very big news for the uk and the world. >> we've talked quite a bit about the immunity from that first dose even on the pfizer and moderna. dr. gottlieb has said 50%, maybe 60%. you would think you introduce

what you are trying to get some immunity towards, you do it the first time, maybe it is not going to be as effective as the double dose, but you would think that that would help and maybe lessen the severity of a lot of the cases. interesting that you point out that the viral vector allows to exist at higher temperatures just a stretch of nucleic acid, half life on that at normal room temperature, and you should be glad that it is not going to sit around, messenger rna isn't going to be in your system the next 50 years. but that is interesting that when it is in that adenovirus, it doesn't decompose nearly as quickly which is also kind of a negative because it shows you that viruses don't break down nearly as quickly. but that is great news i was a little bit envious when you said 100 million will do it because we need a lot more over here >> i'm sure you will get there

in no time, joe. we just need a few more approvals internationally and hopefully we'll be looking for herd immunity at some point in 2021 >> that is something we're looking forward to in about 30 seconds i'll talk about another story that is just so disheartening and concerning. but stay with us for a second. and listen, because this is more only, this congressman just got laenktse elected, 41 years old. but first this, the first case of the variant was found in colorado it was detected in a man in his 20s with no travelhistory suggesting that it has already been spreading in the united states i'm wondering why you would even test anyone for this when there is no evidence the variant though is more likely to lead to a severe case of covid or to evade the new vaccines here it is, becky, and did you check, first thing you did check for underlying conditions with

congressman luke leto? >> yeah, i didn't see anything that came up with it >> no, there weren't any >> this is the story joe was just mentioning. >> 41. >> congressman laenkelect luke has died from complications, as joe mentioned, he was only 41. he announced december 18 that he had tested positive and was admitted to the icu in shreveport december 23 he was due to be sworn into congress sunday. and he is survived by his wife and two young children and as you said, joe, i looked for the same issue and i didn't see anything don't know enough about this but we are very sorry to report this news. >> horrible. also an update on the -- go ahead. >> i think all of congress, i've seen comments from everyone. >> both sides of the aisle >> and someone quoted that it doesn't happen to most people at that age but it can

41 years old what is that makes you realize that we're closer, but you can't -- don't want to let our guard done at this point >> we're so close. and hearing about that new variant that is in colorado too, it is like what else can pile on before we actually get these vaccines out there it seems like these vaccines will be just as effective against that new variant that was in the uk and now here at least in colorado. but probably as dr. gottlieb has said, all over the place, the idea that it spreads more rapidly because you don't need as much to be exposed to as much to get it. it is more highly con tanlg tan yus, not more deadly but what else can pile on. let's get an update on the stimulus those payments to individuals are on the way, but they will be

$600, not $2,000 after mitch mcconnell blocked what would have been the quickest path to increasing those to $2,000 payments there is a lot of political gamesmanship taking place. and i m eamon javers is joining us with more this is something to watch >> yeah, good news is that the treasury will begin drenkts deposits on the $600 checks. so that process is under way the direct deposits are happening. paper checks will happen as well but in terms of that increase from $600 to $2,000, that is something that the president announced that he in fact supported, democrats said okay, if you support it, we'll pass it they moved it through the house of representatives with a two-thirds majority with a biunh of republicans voting with the democrats. all of that gave chuck schumer the democrat in the senate the idea that he might be able to bring that directly to the floor yesterday. he tried to do that and mitch

mcconnell the republican leader there blocked him. senate republicans do not like the idea of these $2,000 checks, they have said that they think it is too much money especially in a time of deficit spending. so there are concerns around that mcconnell saying though that he has a new plan, he will put together this idea of getting together the $2,000 checks with a measure to repeal section 230 of the communications decency act, that is the social media provision that the president has been tweeting about that protects social media companies from liability for things that people post online so that will be a nonstarter and then also mcconnell adding in the idea of an election security commission that would look at allegations of election fraud when we know that that there has been no confirmed fraud found in this election so that will be a poison pill for democrats. democrats say this is all just a partisan ploy to load this bill up with poison pills and we won't stand for it

that means that it's ultimatelis $2,000 checks might stop and mcconnell also said that none of this will move until after they vote to overrides the president's veto of the defense act. now, remember that is something that is wildly popular are with members of congress in both parties because they have done it every year for about 60 years now. it is a lot of funding for the military pay raises for the troops, a lot of popular items in there. the president vetoed it on this issue of confederate base names, he doesn't want confederate names taken off of those bases the president also saying that he wanted the communications decency act provision in that bill as well they are likely to override him in the house and senate. so a lot of politics here that we haven't seen in a while with the president now getting cross with the republicans in the 12459 on a couple different issues pand you can sort of feel president trump losing his grip on those senate republicans as they say, you know what, we'll

chart our own course here. >> i mean, if you look at face value what mitch mcconnell is doing is exactly what the president laid out in what he said he would like to see happen but how do you think president trump will actually come down on this if it means that the $2,000 checks don't get paid out? where do you think -- >> i can't predict that. i hesitate to predict that especially looking at some of the things the president has been tweeting over the past 24, 48 hours just don't have any basis in fact at all. so the mind boggles at that. but look, mcconnell had a direct path to pass these $2,000 checks in about 15 minutes yesterday and he didn't take it. we're also seeing the republicans coming on board, the two georgia senators in the runoff on january 5 that controls the balance of the senate, those two georgia senators who are republicans came out and said we stand with

the president too, we also want those $2,000 checks. they are siding with chuck schumer, not mitch mcconnell on that mcconnell taking an action that will prevent them from having to make a tough vote there. and be cross-wise with their leadership or the president right at a moment where they are running for re-election. they would like to get back to georgia and get on the campaign trail. but this is going to be delayed for some time new because this is a stalling tactic and a poison pill. what will the president say? they are not poisonness miss tm so he might endorse it but his people in the white house will know that that means that is pretty of the endof th $2,000 check idea at least for this congress. we'll see whether joe biden decides this is something that he has to push for >> will section 230 always be a nonstarter with democrats? what is the opposition with the democrats to considering

amending that to some extent they didn't want to do it no matter what? >> i think that it will be a poison pill as long as president trump are is in office which isn't much longer now. you know, because it is something that he wants. so they will resist it -- >> but do they not want it based on -- >> i do think that there is a michlt on the le move the on the left that says free speech has gotten out of hand and on the right that the tech companies are a bunch of liberals in silicon valley and overregulating our speech on the conservative side. so those two wings, if support grows on the wings, they can have a coalition to do something about it if you can imagine what that would mean though for our tech landscape. social media, i mean maybe couldn't exist without section 230, right because that protects the social media companies from liability for things that people post on their platforms.

that facebook is not a publisher in the sense that random house is a publisher and are subject to liability for things that their authors write. facebook is not -- if i defame you on facebook, which i never would, joe -- >> you've come close >> facebook is not liable for that >> you've come close and i you. >> right i'm sure but look, facebook is not liable for that that is the social media that we've come to know and love and also hate. but without that protection, those platforms would look very different. >> and i was just wondering what the actual -- the issue itself where democrats are concerned. because if eventually they were willing to do something, then if they really wanted the $2,000, it wouldn't be a poison pill i don't know about the looking into the -- >> yeah, good luck with the election fraud one >> that could be like the president's -- remember the president proposed an election commission back in 2016 to

investigate fraud in the election that he won and that election commission, they all got together, they looked all around and they couldn't find anything and they quietly disbanded. you do have these blue ribbon commissions that don't did anything and that could be a negotiating strategy but if you look at 230, i don't seedon't did anything and that could be a negotiating strategy but if you look at 230, i don't see democrats getting on board with that right now. as long as the president is still in office. under president biden, could there be social media reforms? i bet there is a lot of members of congress who are interested in that idea, but there are so many different points of view, i don't know where center of gravity is on it yet he and tech companies will fight hard with big lobbying dollars >> all right thank you. at some point i want to talk more about the georgia election because i don't know that we've spent enough time on this, but i'll give you a head's up. >> okay. >> and we've been talking about is the last two days a lot schumer stuff was the most

interesting. frank luntz was on yesterday but the schumer stuff was interesting where nbc reported that he is pessimistic and not going to donors anymore about raising money for the two candidates in georgia because he doesn't want to ruin -- >> how much money do they need >> they need money badly if you check out the nbc report fully way, coanyway, talk aboute investment thesis. and portfolio moves you should consider here is a look at the biggest decliners in the nasdaq 100 year to date. nasdaq # sdaq 100 year to not gr more about ieltrghahd.nt sait ea save hundreds on your wireless bill

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they did monday and tuesday, up about 130, 140 points. held on to those gains on monday for all three indices to close at record high, but then it gave back a little bit yesterday. our next gekxt guest says the mt got a conclusive election, effective vaccine and fiscal stimulus but that executing those issues will be tough for ideas on where the market goes from here. we're joined now on the squawk news line by amy wu silverman at

rbc. i don't know what you mean by execution will be tough because the conclusive election, we might have that in the executive branch, but we're still waiting on georgia and that is the big deal, the big final part of the puzzle that we need before we can make any real deputy decisifinitive decisions. >> yeah, fair enough as it relates to the elections when we polled institutional investors a couple months ago, the presidential election was what was front and center on their mind but obviously georgia is now what is front and center on a lot of people's minds. when we look at this from the options perspective, what the actual options market is pricing, it is not pricing it as a tail event meaning that democrats sweep here however, obviously if that does happen, that is obviously underpriced going into this

georgia runoff but even still, you know, i think that we're sort of in this period where it is all about logistics and execution. so how we administer the vaccine, the fact that there are these variant strains, people have been pretty good about looking through a lot of this, and you know, i think that that is becoming a little tricky has the headlines keep going and you start to see that tick up in nie nervousness and options market, you see people think about what hedges they are deploying right now. >> got sort of an intersection of christmas travel and, you know, people from different parts of the country visiting families and people getting together with the vaccine being rolled out, whether it is being rolled out as smoothly as possible or not. so you sort of got those two issues jujuxtaposed. because there could be like there was after thanksgiving,

there could be an increase in cases again based on with what we saw in the malls. i heard the malls, it was like there was no covid in a lot of places so we'll see which -- i hope the vaccine rollout wins over this latest worry about another wave. but as you say, it is the execution, we just don't know. >> yeah, exactly and, you know, one trend that we look at here was, you know, it was interesting to us because retail has been such a large part in 2020 of what the derivatives market was showing in terms of a complete sea change and how they have been reacting to all of this. obviously when the pandemic started,ed had people getting on their phones for the first time on robinhood trading options, and it was unbelievable to see and we were curious if we would see that going into the holiday season and we actually haven't seen a pickup in the kind of options

trading volumes that we saw in august and back in november. but obviously now we're talking potentially another $2,000 in stimulus, at least $600. and for our markets, this has been a real sea change in how direct investing has disrupted sort of a market that has been relatively niche in terms of who trades in it obviously it is more institutional, but that really has been imt papgting taeeen im mega cap tech stocks and now the stocks related to vaccine recovery >> and stimulus as well i guess, that is also up n in the air i mean we know $600, but i don't know how effective $600 is like i said, maybe help a little, but the difference between $600 and $2,000 is pretty significant and i guess that it will be more in coming months as well that we

don't know about, which could also factor into how we price stocks here. >> yeah, totally and the funny thing, joe, i kind of felt like when the first news came out that, look, there will be $600 in stimulus, the stimulus package was going to get done, the market was relatively happy with that and then when trump responded with this higher number, that immediately became what was kind of the next wall to climb. so somewhat funny now that that is what the market needs to be happy. i think as it relates to that, you know, all of this is going to be still a temporary stopgap until the larger population gets the vaccine. so short term, we think about what my volatility outlook is for 2021, last year, we -- or i guess still this year, we had the biggest hit, biggest spike

in volatility that we've seen in 50 years the last time we saw, you know, vix at the levels that it hit back in april was 1987 and 2008. so, you know, with regards to that, of course i think these relative levels will decline but even so, i think that it will be a higher prolonged scenario and part of that on the institutional side, there is a pretty large amount of career risk from, you know, doing something like systemic selling which was popular and then coupled on top of that you have most of the retail buying options. if they do so more of the stimulus checks, you could continue to see the upward momentum in the market despite, you know, the headlines being relatively poor. >> amy wu silverman, thank you we'll keep an eye on all these things that there is always uncertainty. i hear a lot of uncertainty now, but there is uncertainty

there will never not be. what would happen if there wasn't i guess the options market would collapse or something. i don't know anyway, appreciate your time this morning beck it is the known unknowns, that is what we have to watch out for. and when we come barkcome back,g into dan loeb's suggestions to intel's board. in fact there is the chart right now though as we head to a break, let's take a look at the biggest pre-market gainers in the nasdaq 100

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dan loeb's activist fund third point is urging intel to explore strategic alternatives after the chip maker lost market share to samsung, amd and tsmc. in alert, loeb said intel should consider divesting failed acquisitions and that it had more recommendations that it would like to make to intel privately. third point recently took a stake in intel worth about $1 billion according to roieuters intel says that it welcomes input from all investors intel is down by about 18% this year while its rival amd has nearly doubled in value. you are still looking at a company that is worth just over $200 billion in market cap, so the position that loeb has taken is just under half a percent or about half a percent we should say. >> reading the motivation for his moves, unfortunately he sounds like he is right. i think intel even -- it would be hard for them to get too

defensive about it >> to argue about it, yeah >> i mean, i can remember going back long before intel lost its pre-imminence, it is hard to do, hard to get the yield that you are making out of the citily cone wafers, you know, all kind of things that go into a very sophisticated manufacturing process and they have lost a lot of their dominance to amd. so i don't know, i don't know what the right move for intel is but a lot of times loeb gets on to something and the stuff that he is saying is pretty reasonable separately, he reportedly is eyeing a move into venture capitalism third point is raising its first dedicated vc fund with a target of as much as $300 million the report says third point aims to complete its first round of fund raising as soon as

february coming up, it has been one year since a doctor in wuhan china first raised the alarm about a mysterious virus we'll show you what life looks like in beijing a year later plus we'll talk to the ceo of a company that is looking to streamline travel under covid stctns i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't. let's take care of business. at&t.

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a year ago on december 30th, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist from wuhan posted a message in his would echat group alerts fe doctors that there was a new disease and a year later, the pandemic rages eunice yoon is joining us. >> reporter: as you mentioned, the passenger is raging on overseas, but here in china, things are relatively back to normal i'm here at a restaurant sports bar which i spoke to the owner

and he said that back in january, he could have actually thrown a baseball through this restaurant because it was so empty. today he said that seating capacity is at about 50% and today, which is just a couple days before new year's eve and all the celebrations, it is looking tiactually quite full. you mentioned that ophthalmologist. he is famous here now because he is the one who had alerted other doctors in a wechat group of a mystery virus had emerged in his hospital he was later silenced by the police he then caught the virus himself and then he eventual willy died that of course now known as covid-19 the economy though and businesses generally have been much, much better since the beginning of the year. the economy is on track to post some of the strongest growth compared to a lot of other major

economies in 2021 of about 8%. but still life is not totally back to normal and i can tell you that because just today i found out that my new year's eves have been canceled and a lot of that is because we keep getting the mini outbreaks here in beijing. so we have 20 reported cases and 1.2 million people have been tested in the city and then on top of that, there is still a lot of controversy as you can imagine over the origins of the virus and what exactly happened in wuhan. so yesterday the chinese cdc had said that the anti-bottle prevalence rate was 4.43%. so some experts were looking into that figure and saying that that suggests in wuhan, that half a million people, about ten times more than the reported

cases, hadposed to covid so that has raised lot of he questions here and another story that shook people, a local journalist was sentenced to four years of prison time because of her reporting in wuhan so obviously the authorities here don't want those types of reports to be conflicting with the narrative that they want to continue to perpetuate both here in china as well as overseas >> and there is a lot of narratives that have been not necessarily completely honest about how the whole thing played out. and i don't want us to get turned off in china right now. maybe we already are that happens a lot, eunice but if you recall -- so that was in december. and then in january in dabos, it

happened to coincide with the first case appearing in washington state, i think, in the united states. so it was like the 21st or something and we had an interview with president trump and i asked him about that first case appearing in washington and whether we were prepared for it and he said we're totally prepared and everyone says he was lying, but the day before, eunice, there was a ccp acknowledgement in a perhaps they were wrong that there was no human to human transmission so the very day before the most you got out of the ccp was that it is possible there could be human to human transmission. so the way that it played out, you know, the hindsight that we hear now is so 2020. and you might recall one person in dafr davos warned that it could be a potential problem for the markets and the world. but in the midst of all the

optimism about 2020 that we saw, which is typical of that place, davos, you know, they are 180 degrees wrong every year, all the elist leitists that go there but they have never been more wrong than this time about how great things would be in 2020. look what transpired unbelievable >> well, january 20th as you mentioned was a really important date here because that was when the chinese expert who is kind of like china's dr. fauci had actually acknowledged that there was human to human transmission of this virus. and as understand, i mean up until then, we had heard privately -- you started to see reports about these videos coming out of wuhan, people talking about this mystery virus that is going around in late december and then the first couple weeks of january, we were hearing that this virus had emerged and there were a lot

of conflicting reports about the human to human transmission because officially the authorities were saying this is preventable and controllable and then unofficially, we would hear from doctors and hospitals and medical workers just saying actually they have seen that there has been a lot of human to human transmission so that date of january 20th was really important because finally we had acknowledgement and then of course just a couple days later, the whole place shut down i mean tense of mi i mean, tens of millions were under quarantine >> and at one point people were saying go to chinatown, it is fine next point they are saying yeah, i was warning for months it got ugly. anyway, thank you. we'll talk to you later. as airlines continue to push to get travelers back in the air, a new technology called

verifly is being rolled out. joining us with how bio 34y met will help americans get back on airplanes is the creator of the app. thanks for being with us, tom. >> thank you very much great to be here >> let's talk a little bit about what verifly is. it is being used by american airlines how do you collect test results, how does the app work? >> i think we're all ready to say good-bye to 2020, it has been an awful year in so many way, but there is also reason to be optimistic of the future. first and foremost, vaccines and also a lot of innovation when covid hit, daon was focused on transactions around the world and we saw travel as an industry that was so hard hit and in need of innovative ideas and solutions, it was apparent that

test and vaccines were going to come at some point but then individuals would need to be able to take the health credentials, whether it is a covid test or a vaccine and be able to use them, have their in their possession and control and share them with them when and where and how they want. and so we started working with airline americans at denver international airport to market leaders who were laser focused on safety in travel. and we invented a solution we call it verifly >> but how does it work? and i ask because obviously it makes sense for people to get these tests and to be able it show that, to be able to show that they can fly and not in-fenkts other passengers but there have been cases where people who had negative tests, i think there was a case in new zealand, where there were two people who had negative tests and they went on to in-fenkts they think five other people on

the flight there have been fake tests for sale so how does verifly confirm that these tests are for real and recent and do it while still proenktsing t proenktsing t protecting the people's information? >> if you travel to locations around the world including caribbean and also hawaii, there are requirements for pcr tests within 72 hours of your departure. and so what verifly does, it helps manage those credentials in a single way that is under control of the user. the dren shal comcredential com either directly from a lab and it is uploaded, it is reviewed for authenticity and then lock them within the individual's verifly app on their smartphone. so when they begin their traveling journey -- and all of

this occurs to before they leave their home so rather than handing paper forms that can be doctored or forged, what we're doing is allowing them to attempt their pass/fail credential that they meet all the travel requirements for the destination country including pcr tests or proof of a vaccine or other requirements and they can go on their journey and they can go through an expedited lane at the airport and it would save them time and also gives them tremendous peace of mind and confidence that their journey will be successful >> this sounds like it would definitely help speed things along and boost confidence how quickly can it be rolled out in more locations? >> it is already implemented with tens of thousands of passengers and the response is overwhelmingly positive. we also are operating in denver and in denver, think of starting

at home and rather than racing to the airport to wait in line, you can make a reservation at the tsa checkpoint through or app, you can have a dedicated tsa line where you have less contact with people. it is like open table for a reservation in a restaurant. you make a reservation, you go through the dedicated tsa line r. lane, y you then have a train car that has fewer people on it that also is reserved for ver ichlt rchve enrollees. and so designed to make the whole journey more comfortable and more certain and it is scaling to other destinations across the country, more international, more flights and you will see a rapid ramp up in the first quarter of 2021 >> hey, tom, thank you for your time appreciate talking to you and we'll talk to you again soon

>> thank you, becky. coming up, much more to get you ready for the last two trading days of the year today is new year's eve eve. yesterday was the eve of new year's eve eve take a look at the biggest winners in the dow this morning. caterpillar higher after it was named a top eaorid f 2021 and boosted its price target

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still to come this morning, the battle for bigger stimulus checks continues on the hill we'll talk to senator pat toomey for the latest out of washington that's next. later, is the curtain coming down on movie theaters the hard-hit sector taking blows from both covid and streaming. so will theaters survive in a post pandemic rlwod? we'll get to that question "squawk box" will be right back. hey, dad!

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good morning stocks pointing to gains as we make our way towards the opening bell major averages all hit new highs before turning lower and snapping multi-day winning streaks. good news and concerning news both on the coronavirus united kingdom gives a green light to the azarenka oxford university vaccine as they report the first case of the virus strain first seen in the u.k. and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell now tying the potential $2,000 stimulus checks to election and social media issues details coming up along with an interview with pennsylvania senator pat toomey who is against the $2,000 payments. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now.

good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc that's awesome look at him, so well scrubbed. >> i was going to say, it was just before his last term. everybody looks good before they take on these terms. >> god almighty. reporting on it takes something out of you i think anyway, we still look good >> yeah, that's how we explain ourselves. >> yeah. i say for myself i'm joe kernen along with becky

quick. andrew is off this morning u.s. equities up triple digits after looking like they were going to set some records. things eased the dow is down 80 or so some of the small caps had problems, too, becky i don't know when the -- i don't know when any of this real exciting frenzy, any of that stuff cools off. it certainly has been something to watch in a lot of different asset classes. you know, i don't know how you really view it i guess it's fed related but fed's not going away any time soon and we probably get more stimulus next year so not sure how to read it >> yeah. in the meantime, there has been some good news breaking overnight as well. the united kingdom authorizing the first covid vaccine developed by astrazeneca and the oxford university for emergency use. astrazeneca said the first doses will be released today so vaccinations can begin early in the new year

it's a two-dose vaccine that uses an altered chimpanzee virus to give the body a preview of the coronavirus. it can be stored, transported and handled at standard refrigerator temperatures for at least six months it has that advantage over the existing vaccines that have been approved side effects fever, flu like symptoms, headache or a sore arm. the first u.s. case of the new strain was found in colorado colorado's governor said the patient is a man in his 20s who does not have a recent history of travel. that suggests that the new strain has already been spreading in the united states, but scientists believe it does not cause more severe symptoms than the original coronavirus strain and that the current vaccines will probably be effective against it as well and there is a furious debate in washington right now over whether the new $600 covid relief checks should be bumped up to $2,000 a person.

senate majority leader mitch mcconnell blocked a vote on the bigger checks and is coupling them with two other issues important to the president, liability protections, getting rid of them, protect companies, and election concerns. senior economics reporter steve liesman joins us now with a look at what $2,000 payments would be for the economy should they be approved i self-monitor myself on twitter and i'm not on facebook but i'm so aware i mean, you say anything and the haters, steve. i would never say anything that i could be liable for something, i don't think, do you? i don't need liability protection, i don't think. i'm too scared >> reporter: not yet, joe. one of these days you may need it look, i don't want to get -- i want to stay away from the politics, but i'll tell you, joe, the intensity of the political debate is echoed b

economists whether the big checks are needed and how much good they'll do. they're debating why 2k these are the biggest stimulus checks start with the down side the deficit impact of an additional $300 billion going out the door it goes to some who may not need it as a result, much will be saved and there are diminishing returns for every dollar of government spending. john ryding means a lot more saving and a big hole in the budget i don't think it means that much in the way of actual aggregate demand ryding doesn't think they can push up their goods purchases a whole lot more he would prefer to send bigger checks to the unemployed or extend unemployment benefits beyond march and he worries about the possible inflationary effects when the economy returns to potential and then jefferys says the estimate of 1.5% gdp but it boosts gdp by 0.8%

here's the up side the world says it doesn't matter right now. it may help the deficit by increasing demand. it helps those who have fallen through the cracks in the existing benefits system and it could speed up the recovery. david mericle of goldman sachs says this money can go out more quickly and maybe get to people who otherwise wouldn't get help. austan goolsbee said targeting lower income people and at risk groups like the unemployed would be better, but compared with not doing anything, a scatter shot is better than no shot it's clear the economics for these checks are not as clear as they were back in the spring for the $1200 checks it comes down to this, i think if you think the deficit is a problem, you don't want to mess up how you use what money you have you don't worry much about the deficit? you might as well send the checks because it could do some good and won't do a lot of harm, joe.

>> i hear you, steve so you won't get political far be it for you, or me, to get political. it's a lot of money. it's a lot of money but we need it does it go to the right people both sides -- >> no. >> lately steve, i'm ready to go back and be on the debate team because you could assign either side of half of these issues to me and i think i could make a decent case, you know what i mean maybe that's why there's disagreement >> i really feel that way about this one, joe. i think the issue is the economics right now cannot answer the question about the deficit. we just don't know people i talked to are like we don't know how much it matters, how far we can go. i know senator toomey, respect his opinion. he's going to say he thinks the deficit is the problem i respect that point of view joe, can i end with an economics joke. >> oh, no. >> one economist told me that all you need to know about the

economics of the $2,000 check is that pelosi and trump both support it >> you know what, that's less of a joke and more of a really bizarreo observation that we are living in that world, that seinfeldian world where nothing makes sense. i thought about that mcconnell, even what he's deciding to do now, he's currying favor with the president with those two other poison pills he knows the democrats will never go for those but if the president really does want the 2,000, he's effectively killed t. kind of put some salve on the wound by saying i'm trying to do this for you it's all crazy that's why i don't know. throwing up my hands trying to figure out -- >> i've got enough trouble, joe, sorting out the economics. i leave ylan and eamon, they get to sort out the politics.

>> florida/oklahoma, which that's what i'm trying to sort out. and i have no idea i just think maybe it's going to be the over, but then maybe. thanks, steve. becky, sorry we digress >> used to that. anyway, for more on the stimulus battle on capitol hill, let's bring in pennsylvania republican senator pat toomey he is against increasing the 600 ds checks to $2,000. senator toomey, welcome. why don't you explain to people why you're opposed to increasing the checks to $2,000. >> yeah, guys. thanks for having me back. i think our economy is in such a completely different place today than we were in in march in march, remember, we were in a full blown almost complete universal shutdown in some manner of speaking we didn't have an economy for a brief time and we felt like we needed to come in with massive, massive amounts of money to substitute for an economy. it was extremely broad

it was a meltdown. today we're in a totally different place. we have a 33% economic growth in the third quarter. we have come back sharply. we have cut the unemployment rate in half it's not the same situation. we have acute problems in certain industries and sectors, we know that restaurant, travel, entertainment, lodging, those areas devastated people out of work very grim prospects right now but more broadly the economy is in a recovery mode so the idea that we're going to send out $2,000 checks per person to households that have had no loss of income, that have -- maybe have six figure income, that makes no sense whatsoever to me i mean, talk a married couple with two kids, they both work for the federal government, have a combined income of $150,000, we're going to send them $8,000 when they never even had the slightest reduction in their income that makes absolutely no sense at all i don't think we should do it.

>> i understand your concern, absolutely, and hear you on that point. i guess the question would be raised, what do you do to people who fall through the existing benefits platforms that we have right now, maybe people who were unemployed who have had their job, that lost it because of covid and have been on unemployment for too long and won't be receiving those benefits anymore what about for people who have seen a drop in their income? maybe they're under employed at this point is there a way to target those people who aren't targeted in the bill as it's passed to this point? the law that's been signed by the president, is there a way to target those people who have slipped through the cracks and who have been affected by this >> first of all, that's exactly the conversation i think we should be having, not this universal, you know, helicopter money. by the way, if this amount of money, which is about almost 2/3 of a trillion dollars is what we're talking about for the direct payments if we raised it to 2,000, over $600 billion, if

that went just to the roughly 12 million people in the official unemployed count, that's over $50,000 per person if you say the under employed number is twice that big fine, it's $25,000 per person in that situation so i think that's worth keeping in mind. what do we do in the covid bill for the very people you referred to we extend eligibility for unemployment we add on $300 federal payment to whatever the state is paying in unemployment benefits by the way, nothing stops the states from paying still more if they decide. we add eligibility for people who have historically not been able to participate in unemployment insurance, like the self-employed folks, gig workers. all of those things are in place. there's rent relief programs there's an increase in food stamps there's all kinds of programs that are meant to target the people who are in difficult circumstances. what i can't wrap my brain around is the six figure income

couple that have had no interruption in income and we're still going to send them thousands and thousands of dollars. >> that makes sense. why do you think though that the president supports this? >> i don't know. i think you'd have to ask the president that, but i just think it doesn't make sense to have these universal payments any relief should be targeted. that's where our economy is today. it's calling for certainly targeted relief for those people who are adversely affected, but thank god most people who want to be working actually are working and most americans have not -- at this point are not experiencing a reduction in their income so should really be targeted >> if this came to the senate floor as a clean vote, i think it would have the votes needed to pass. i think there's only 47 republican senators who are opposed to it in this manner are you in favor of what mitch

mcconnell is doing by tying this to things, the poison pills like the election fraud, looking into this and the 230 repeal. >> this may be a bit of a nuance i'm not sure that senator mcconnell insisted these things be linked-in one legislative vehicle. he was saying they share in common a need for the senate to do some work here, to do an investigation, maybe go through the committee process, maybe to debate this and consider how to refashion this so i'm strongly opposed to these blanket universal checks i know many of my republican colleagues are as well we'd be open to how this could be repurposed and retargeted, at least a portion of it. similarly, with section 230 of the communications act, i think there are some problems there. i think the assumption that these internet platforms are just passive bulletin boards that allow people to post a

message and play no other role, i think it's clear that's not true given that that's not always true, what should we do differently? but it's not at all clear to me that you just rip out 230 and tear it up and it goes away. i think that could have very dramatic, unintended consequences my point is these are fairly complicated, important we shouldn't go down to the floor and have a single vote on a single aspect. we ought to consider it in its complexity and see if there's a consensus for some path forward. >> senator toomey, just to be clear, there may be nuance involved in this but what mitch mcconnell did is make sure there would not be a straight vote on the floor of the senate for increasing the checks to $2,000. >> i agree with that i'm not saying i don't think senator mcconnell was saying the only way we will consider this with a package with section 230 repeal and election reform issues in one vote, i don't

think that's what he was saying. i think he was saying we're not going to do this as a free standing measure now let's consider all of these items. they're all complex. they're all important. they all deserve attention, but i don't -- i don't think we should just have an up or down vote right now on some really bad policy >> what he's effectively done, means it won't be considered in this congress, right >> that may be the case. but by the way, i would also point out, it takes 60 votes in the senate to pass something, and it's not clear to me that any of these policies have 60 votes. i think we just don't know >> takes 60 votes if you have to override a veto. it would only take 51 votes, wouldn't it? >> no, 2/3 actually. 2/3 to override a veto 60 votes under the senate rules to pass a bill there are some exceptions. none of these come under the

category of exceptions it would take 60 votes. >> then why not just vote on it? >> because as i said, i think it's a very, very badly flawed proposal i don't think it has the 60 votes. certainly may not. we could come back with something that would have much broader support because it's more targeted rather than spending literally $630 billion, most of which will go to people who have had no loss of income. >> i understand your point on all of those things, but i also think that you think what's been done in this bill that has been passed and signed by the president is probably enough for now. am i wrong to assume that? >> look, i'm open to suggestions if there are categories of people that fall through the cracks as you say despite the expanded eligibility of unemployment, despite increasing the amount of the unemployment benefits, despite all of the other aid programs that have been plussed up. if there are still people falling through the cracks, i'm totally open to learning about

that and figuring out what's the best way to address that but we did a lot of work for a lot of months, democrats, republicans and the administration trying to cover people who are in adverse circumstances. i know we went a long way towards accomplishing that it is a $900 billion bill. that's a lot of money. if there are people remaining, then i'm totally open to doing something additional, but you know how i feel about the blanket universal checks >> we do senator toomey, thank you for your time today. it's good to see you >> all right thanks, becky. all right. becky, we've got -- hey, becky, are you -- >> yeah? i'm here. >> do you think canola is a legitimate jumble word. >> canola oil? >> i just don't think that's a legitimate --

>> it's a brand. usually you can't go with brands and you can't go with -- >> i think that's -- you know, that's trying too hard to mess you up canola come on. >> i would agree you can't take a brand name and use it as a -- no names allowed. >> maybe it's not a brand. maybe it's -- >> i thought it was. coming up -- unicorn would be good. unicorn alert. we'll share with you the story of yet another tech company whose valuation bounded above a billion dollars in the midst of the pandemic as we head to break, let's get you caught up on a few headlines. bitcoin notching another all-time high. it hit under 28,600 this morning although it has pulled back slightly since. tiffany shareholders are expected to vote on and approve an amended merger agreement with giant lvmh that happened this morning the deal worth approximately $16

million. strict stay at home orders have been renewed indefinitely in southern california and the state's san joaquin valley as the coronavirus pushes area hospitals to the brink that's one of the biggest trouble spots that dr. seth gottleib talked about yesterday. southern california. the state's health and human services secretary says at least 90% of hospitals in los angeles county were forced to divert incoming emergency patients this ndst weeke stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc save hundreds on your wireless bill

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news just crossing the wires. boutique investment firm perella wineberg has agreed to go public with a spac. joe, by the way, canola is apparently the plant, not the brand. >> yeah. yeah so i guess that's fair i guess. it's interesting news on -- so spacs are getting more acceptable it seems like >> you know, i was wondering why everybody's doing a spac that's the question we've asked. why are you going with a spac. it's kind of asking why you rob the banks. it's where the money is. >> right i don't know if we should use necessarily that metaphor for --

i understand what you're saying, but -- because we get accused of talking down spacs andrew has talked about the fees quite a bit, but i don't have a problem with spacs. >> new way of being wound up. >> exactly as we wind down 2020 we're spotlighting companies that have done particularly well this year and crossed into so-called unicorn valuation territory above $1 billion the next member of the billion plus club is called unqork one of those words without a u 3-year-old no code software platform liberty mutual, the city of new york and goldman sachs, build custom software without writing a single line of code.

lay is one of unqork's board gary, so all of this code i've been learning in my spare time, you don't need me? >> no. we will make you more effective, joe. thank you for having us on it's a pleasure to be here the q and the t, we couldn't afford to buy the real domain. it was half a million and we self-funded the company. software is all around every industry it's more important than every sector and location. 2020 has shown us that being digital is no longer an accessory, it's a necessity to survive. when you look around, you'll see amazing technologies that have been proved and it's like infrastructure and cloud computing. you'll see security and analytics.

the reality is for the last 30 years there's been no improvement in the way we actually create the software that runs on that infrastructure and creates that data that's been running the machine learning technologies. as a fortune 50 cio, the last 40 years or so, i was building their infrastructure, trading their markets, managing evp at metlife managing 10,000 developers creating that cold. that's the old way the traditional way, joe, if you learned today how to create code and what code is for those who don't know, it's basically like learning ancient greek it's a language. you have to learn it, master it. it takes 10,000 hours to be proficient at it it's legacy the second it's written and created. we're spending $500 billion every year in enterprise technology creating what looks like ancient greek and in reality it's not working

unqork is the way it's done. we create the most complex, grade software with nothing more than drag and drop software. i can teach you myself it's something which we are revolutionizing the way software is being written and communicated and it's analyzed by the data and security when you look at the numbers, it speaks for ourselves we were founded in 2017 and we're worth over $2 billion just a few years later. really based on success with our clien clients. >> you had me at hello with -- >> could i register you in our training, joe? we can do it right now. >> the non-training that i like. leila, when did -- how did this get on your radar? when did you realize the potential? how long have you known gary, et cetera >> so capital g led the

investment in unqork and series b in december. i had spent the time studying no code software because of some of the things gary spoke about. the demand for digital transf m transformation is an all-time high inside of many companies you see the development pipeline of the software that they need to build to serve their customers on the front end, to power the back end and there's just no way for them to get through that development platform so they need a better way. and so i studied a lot of the different no code platforms out there. when i met gary i immediately knew he was the type of entrepreneur i wanted to work with he has this deep understanding of the customer pain point from his years working at these fortune 50 companies and he understands how software is built insides of the enterprises but he understood the need to do it in a better and faster way.

unqork is a platform that many different users can create the software that has the scale that's secure that has the features to build these mission critical applications but they can do it much faster and much better, i found couples that were thrilled with the results and ready to build the second, third, fourth application and i knew this was the type of team and company i wanted to work with. >> i'm understanding just enough to be excited about this, and i don't know how far i want to go with this. someone once bought me a book about writing code introductory as introductory as -- i went -- the first two pages i said forget it. there are people that know how to -- i'm not going to build bridges or do any brain surgery. i don't need to -- anyway, i just -- i had one more question but we have to have you back this can't replace everything. it just can augment things, right? there still will be code software, right? >> our goal is to be a big

company, joe we could replace everything around it. >> all right i want to talk more about this and i'll talk to vanna maybe you can buy a vowel. by a u i think they're $100 i never understand why people do it they spend their money -- you can see why they do it thank you, gary and leila. great to have you on becky, did i just cop to watching whooel "wheel of fortu" would anybe one be surprised >> while you eat your soup >> with a straw. >> joe biden blasting the trump administration with what he calls a too slow rollout of the coronavirus vaccine. we'll ask a top member of the president-elect's coronavirus task force what higgs plans entail stay tuned, "squawk box" will be right back

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two big coronavirus developments the first, the united kingdom has authorized the covid vaccine developed by astrazeneca and at the same time the u.s. case of the variant found in brittain has been found in colorado joining us to talk about all of this is dr. borio, a member of president-elect biden's covid advisory board and, doctor, thank you for being with us this morning let's talk first about this new emergency use authorization in the u.k. for the astrazeneca vaccine. how quickly do you think this will be approved in the united states and what does this mean to have a third vaccine

candidate? >> really terrific to have more candidates out there the more vaccines that are safe, effective, have quality and the better off we are, we know moderna and pfizer, they are more challenging to manufacture. right now we cannot supply the entire global demand for the vaccine and rely on the mrna so i think the astrazeneca approval in the u.k. is a big step forward to have more, steady supply of vaccine for the world. >> it's been fantastic to have these vaccines starting to be administered in the united states we have how they've been administered and confusion about how things should go where do you think we stand in terms of how we're doing with that what are the plans that president-elect biden has once he's in office

>> that's right. so we are in the middle of this very, very serious crisis. we have vaccines now that have been distributed and only 1/5 of the vaccines have been administered a little bit over 2 million doses to date. this is just way too slow. we have to dramatically pick up the pace if we're going to vaccinate and use all of these vaccines that we've been supporting over the last few months we have to pick up to about 1 million vaccinations a day the president-elect has made a commitment that he'd like to see 100 million doses within the first 100 days of his administration and so we're going to have to really do a lot more to pick up the pace on these vaccinations i'll point out that -- >> what are the bottlenecks? >> yeah. so i think that the main issues that the cdc has been alerting to the fact that the states have not received adequate support to be able to thoroughly engage in

planning and mobilize to prepare for the vaccination program. i think that cvs and walgreens have been doing a terrific effort to begin this rollout in long-term care facilities. they have hired vaccinators and developed logistics around a vaccination program, but after that there are no significant plans from the trump administration to lie on them for more vaccinations other than, you know, eventually when supply is ample to offer them vaccination clinics. they need a lot more support for the states to be able to work with the private sector and ramp up their own systems to be able to reach all-americans, all the population of people that would like to get a vaccine to get one. i get having states have some autonomy over vaccination, but that doesn't mean we drop a bunch of vaccines at their sites and let them deal with it.

it doesn't really work unless everybody has access to vaccines who wants one. >> let's talk about that you're in favor of the states still having awe ton mow any so what would be different? will there still be the states having the authority to do these things will there be a national plan? what specifically is needed? is it funding for certain things i don't understand where the problem is now or what will be different. >> so the government has put a lot of resources into developing the vaccines and manufacturing the vaccines and then they turn around and says we'll send it to the states but how to do this. i understand that, you know, the federal government provides tremendous amount of coordination and guidance and how they're prioritized. that's great the states for the most part are going to follow acip recommendations. the cdc recommendations. what i'm saying is that

providing the states with some autonomy of how to best use the vaccines within their immediate needs does not mean that you leave them without meaningful support and logistics support to be able to actually carry out the implementation of vaccinations of the american people and that's what has happened is that there's been resources applied to having the doses manufactured but no minimal resources given to states to be able to carry out the vaccination program. so we're going to have to dramatically ramp up those efforts to support the states so they can do their job and their part in vaccinating the population they're going to continue to work, i'm sure, with cvs and walgreens, but the whole system has to be ramped up. right now, like i said, a little over 2 million doses have been distributed. we have vaccines sitting in warehouses that is not being used the pace is so slow that at this current pace it's going to take years to vaccinate the u.s.

population we can't afford to wait. we have no time to waste. >> i know there were funds for vaccinations that were in this most recent care package -- care package that was passed. are those funds enough to get to the states to do what they need? >> well, the president-elect has stated these funds are not sufficient they are downpayment the states have already, you know, made requests for what they need and it's actually a lot more than what they are likely going to receive. so, you know, this is -- it's not going to be -- all the efforts to produce safe and effective vaccines in record time will be for not to get vaccines in people's arms. >> dr. borio, thank you for your time today >> my pleasure coming up, a plastic spac. say that ten times fast.

plastic spac we'll introduce you to a company with a revolutionary product we'll ask the ceo why they went the spac route stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc 17 education & technology is a

leading education technology company in china it creates a more efficient, effective, and engaging personalized education experience for teachers, students, and parents. we are so honored to have 17 education & technology join the greatest new economy companies on nasdaq to make the world a better place.

coming up, the big bets that put billionaire hedge fund manager bill ackman in the black here we get ready to wrap up the year of the spac that can revolutionize the plastics industry ascsmy friends stay tuned, you are watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc. sales are down from last quarter but we are hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uh... doug? sorry about that. umm... what...its...um... you alright? [sigh] [ding] never settle with power e*trade. it has powerful, easy-to-use tools to help you find opportunities, 24/7 support when you need answers

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hedge fund manager bill ackman about to close the year firmly in the black. leslie picker is with us >> good morning, becky bill ackman is going to return 7-0 percent. those gains were different from his style. they were driven by late february, early march hedge in the concerns about the pandemic. subsequently ackman unwound the hedges for a $2.6 billion profit which has plowed into his portfolio companies and reinstating holdings on the equity side. these include some that have been depressed by the shutdown, including restaurant brands and hilton others like chipotle, starbucks,

adu le ent technologies and lowe's then ackman raised this year's largest spac, $4 billion in hand now to fund a future acquisition including ackman is now managing $17 billion. it's worth noting that this year's returns follow last year's gains of nearly 60% putting the firm above its high water mark to collect incentive fees those gains follow several years of negative returns, guys. >> that's a lot of money a lot of money. >> it is >> and big spac. speaking of which, leslie, we have a really interesting spac coming up right now. becky, guess what the plastics seed stock is we're going to talk about are you there, beck? >> yeah, i'm here. i have no idea >> canola oil.

>> canola? oh, man. >> joining us now, and that's totally serendipity because we were talking about that because of the jumble but danamer scientific is the name fascinating. biodegradable plastic. steven crosky, danamer plastics ceo. you were flying high and then came the pandemic and you were ready to roll out this really interesting stuff which we'll talk about in a second, steve, then the pandemic hit. so the spac right now is the right way for you to go because you can immediately put some cash on the balance sheet to honor the contracts you have with these big companies. >> that's right, joe thank you for having me on you've answered the question for me there our company has historically been funded by farmers and small business people from southwest

georgia, one of the poorest counties in george gampt we've always been very careful they've been there for us for over 15 years. we've always been very careful not to dilute them unnecessarily. we've always kind of taken a step ladder approach to financing. we launched the holy grail of plastic in march and two days later the covid shutdown came. so that kind of blew up our expansion plans from a financing standpoint even though we were sitting on over $200 million in taker payoff agreements. we had customers like pepsico, ba cardi expecting us to grow and we had to find a lot of cash fast and that's what we did. >> you said holy grail >> you said holy grail, the

pha -- the compound, it had the highest level of biodegradability which is marine biodegradable. all plastics need bacteria to eventually decompose but it doesn't happen quickly and it may not happen completely. that's what your stuff looks like after eight weeks even if it was in the ocean. it doesn't leave any micro plastic pieces around at that point. >> that's right. it is consumed enzyme maticically. we feed vegetable oil to bacteria we get that vegetable oil from plants which are getting carbon from the atmosphere. we're taking carbon from the plants, feeding it to bacteria that convert that carbon into another form of carbon, pha, for their own metabolic uses

like humans, if they eat too much, they'll continue to eat and they'll store that extra pha as energy reserve, it's not technically correct but i call it bug fat we extract that from inside the microorganism and that is the plastic resin. it's nature's recycling plan and that's why it works so well. if these products get into places that they don't belong, like the ocean, they will be consumed by bacteria and go away they are the preferred food source for bacteria. there is no plastic, micro plastic. >> out of the 800 billion that is being produced right now, you could -- 500 billion you could take care of with this compound, with this pha compound, that's your forecast? that would be huge the company would be -- >> yeah. that's not a forecast, that's really just, you know, an

estimate of what we feel is the addressable market. >> addressable market. >> yeah. >> and you also -- you're not -- most plastics come from hydrocarbons, oil based. this is vegetable based. >> that's right. >> you don't even need petroleum. that's not petroleum based to go ahead and do this. you have straws? i read that and said, awesome, because i don't like the paper straws those are already being sold in walmart. have you developed water bottles yet or that's what this money is for? >> no. this money is to expand our capacity, but we have a development agreement with nestle to develop a marine degradable water bottle. >> and what else snack food packaging even alcohol, who's that with, bacardi? >> we're working with bacardi on bottles, working with nestle on water bottles and pepsico for

their snack food packaging and other companies that have chosen not to be public because they see it as a competitive advantage. >> how much more does this cost to make a water bottle down the road than the way it's made right now? >> well, we're at market price we can sell these materials for say two to four times fossil fuels but one of the things that you have to keep in mind is that this is a value added product. these products are both renewable and degradable and so, you know, you wouldn't expect to sell them for the same price as fossil fuels. >> right but two to four times, that obviously is going to go into the calculus for who adopts, you know, mass -- a mass adoption of the material >> that's correct. you know, one of the reasons our strategy has been to focus on these big brand owners is because they already have scale

and, you know, these companies use hundreds of millions and even billions of pounds of plastic, and they want to fix this problem, too. and so they recognize that, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship they need to give us their business to help us drive scale so that we can drive costs down and bring that price down closer to us. >> how much better can you get at this? i'm sure this pha polymer that you design isn't the last one that could be developed. is it possible to drive down the manufacturing costs? >> yes yes, it is if you think about t fossil fuels have been around optimizing for 70 years. you know, we just got started. been commercial for maybe seven months now so i think there's a tremendous amount of optimization and improvements left over the years. >> all right sounds like danaher, but it's

not. >> danimer. >> steven, thank you >> thank you, joe. happy new year. >> happy new year. what's the symbol dnm -- >> dnmr. >> okay. i can remember that. thank you. >> thank you. >> goods luck. >> thank you very much >> beck? thanks, joe. when we come back we're going to hear when those potential $2,000 stimulus checks are a great idea and conversely why that money could be spent better elsewhere. stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc. some people say our trade-in

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good morning breaking overnight, the u.k. has approved the astrazeneca oxford vaccine for emergency use. we will take you live to london. plus, we'll go to washington for the latest on the battle for bigger stimulus checks in the senate. it's been a year since a mystery virus first appeared in wuhan, china we'll get a checkup on some of the hardest hit restaurants, movie theaters and businesses and how quickly relief will be coming the final hour of "squawk box" right now.

good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick. andrew is off today. u.s. equity futures at this hour indicated up triple digits the s&p indicated up 15. nasdaq up 50 the ten-year is .95 on the treasury yield obviously we'll all be watching the ten-year over the next year. it matters it matters we've got a lot of debt outstanding, everybody does. any increase in rates, something to consider. becky, i just never want to hear any criticism about going off topic with something random because you just saw how important it is and how things can happen i mentioned canola oil, five minutes later we have a company that's going to save the oceans because of canola oil. just bizarre, isn't it >> i've learned a lot this

morning. every day you've got to learn something. yeah >> yeah. our two biggest stories this morning, the latest on the stimulus checks coming out of washington we'll get to eamon javers in a moment first to the u.k jomana joins us now. this is very good news. >> reporter: yeah, absolutely. huge day for the u.k. and for science, becky i think the important thing to note here is this is different in nature from the vaccines that have already been rolled out from pfizer biontech and moderna. this is a viral vector and it can be stored at 2 degrees celsius and 8 degrees celsius, normal refrigeration temperature and preserved for six months it can be manufactured quickly and produced on a mass scale astrazeneca has said they're planning on rolling out 3 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021 they've committed to selling

those vaccines at cost to lower income and middle income countries. it has huge repercussions for the emerging markets and a significant portion of the world. in terms of the u.k., the government has committed to buying 100 million doses of the vaccine. that is more than enough to cover almost the entire population excluding children and as many as 4 million doses should be available as soon as next week. so the plan is to start the inoculations as soon as monday the last thing i want to point out as well, the u.k. government is committing to a different strategy in terms of the rollout. they're saying they want to inoculate as many people as possible with the first dosage before waiting to deliver the second dosage. typically the time frame is four weeks. this time around they're saying they're going to wait 12 weeks so they can get as many people as possible with the baseline. that is a change in strategy they want to get as many people inoculated as quickly as possible given the mounting

number of cases in the u.k. and all over the world as well >> yeah. that strategy has been debated here in the united states as well it's interesting to see it roll out there. joumanna, thank you very much. right now we'll get over to eamon javers in washington >> reporter: becky, look, the good news is if you're looking for a stimulus check in your mailbox, treasury says the $600 checks are already going out a lot of people may have already received those by direct deposit. the other checks are in the mail if you are looking for the $2,000 bonus check debated in washington, looks like that one is dead. that's because mitch mcconnell blocked that from coming to the floor after chuck schumer tried to bring the house passed bill to the senate floor. what mcconnell says his new plan is to couple together the $2,000 checks idea with the president's idea of section 230 communications decency act, that's the provision that secures liability protections

for social media companies, he wants to couple all of that with an election commission to investigate potential fraud, although no fraud has been found. all of those ideas, mcconnell will package them together and it will pass democrats say this is a poison pill designed to get rid of the $2,000 checks idea the president supports those and mcconnell does not therefore, the $2,000 checks idea is not going anywhere any time soon. >> i know you spoke about the georgia senate race yesterday. i wasn't here for that i do think it's something worth checking in on we are getting so close to this race it's something the markets don't seem to be thinking about. what can you tell us about a week away from the election? >> reporter: what we know is the january 5th runoff, there are two incumbent senators up for re-election in this runoff race.

it is a monster. we're seeing monster turnout already. monster fundraising already. the states are enormous too. the entire control of the senate is at stake here in the election sort of the fate of the early stages of biden presidency, whether he's dealing with a democratic senate that will pass a lot of legislation or a republican senate that will stand in opposition to him all of that is at stake in georgia over the coming days there are so many big questions around this. one of them is how many of the republican voters who crossed party lines to vote for joe biden in the general election because of their frustrations with trump, the suburban republican voters primarily will stay in the democratic camp this time around? or will they go back to their republican roots that's a big question as well. the other question is how many republicans are there who are sort of trump only voters, voters who turn out when donald trump is on the ballot but don't turn out when somebody else is at the top of the ticket that's another big unknown here. there's a lot of factors here at

play, and because of the attention, the stakes, the money, the votes that we've seen, the unprecedented turnout that we've seen there for a runoff, it's just such an unknown wild card and the fate of the senate hangs in the balance. >> eamon, that's what we talked about. i don't know how much georgia is like the rest of the country necessarily. if they had a problem with president trump, but then if they were just to look at their gop orientation in terms of a senate, house and president all being democrats, that might motivate people that weren't comfortable backing president trump but that sort of want to come back home to the party just based on the fear of what that would mean >> right. >> the other thing, eamon, that might explain something with the markets, just listening to joe

manch manchin, how many seats in the house? four, five not 34, 35 the whole idea of stacking courts and defunding, whatever red herring you want to put up for what the socialist democrat that they're trying to paint on the other side, whatever you want to throw up, a lot of those things are off the table no matter what happens in georgia >> reporter: yeah. that's clear i mean, if the democrats have the majority, it's going to be an extremely slim majority joe biden wasn't inclined to govern as a socialist anyway, but even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to with a senate of that slim margin of control. i think a lot of it is going to be about whether he can get any major legislation passed outside of an infrastructure bill which has had bipartisan support of course all of those judges and be other things that he might want to bring to the senate floor in terms of confirmations of his cabinet secretaries, all of that that will be a lot easier for him with democrats even in nominal control.

you're right, it will be the swing senators in the middle who are going to sort of form a centrist block and that will be the name of the game in the senate can you get it through the manchins of the world. if you can, you can pass it. it won't be anything that aoc wants to see passing in the senate >> that's funny that you mentioned aoc. let's get to our next guest. let's bring in former new york congressman joe crowley and former wisconsin governor scott walker the ceo of the young american's foundation congressman crowley, we -- we bonded as sort of an enemy of my enemy type situation i look at you now and think, wow, what a normal, reasonable fella. >> i told you that, joe. joseph, i told you long ago, i'm a reasonable person, you didn't buy it >> anyway. what i'm referencing is aoc. this is your fault that this happened or you get credit for this happening, congressman. we'll talk about the news of the day and then get to governor

walker what do you think of the 2,000 versus the 600 or, you know, all of these crazy kabookie dances going on in washington, congressman? >> i think it's happening right now. we have a crisis on our hands. that's covid-19. i don't think we should be pitting any one form of relief against another. there is a lot in this bill that passed into law that will help the american people including unemployment extension, extension of ppps. the extension that will allow people to stay in their homes and not be evicted there's a lot here to celebrate and i think to look forward to i do think an additional amount of money would have helped the american people but, look, there will be time to address some of those issues down the road with a new president. >> governor walker, you -- the republican party has branded itself over the years as being physically conservative. what does a real republican feel about how to approach the

stimulus right now one that's compassionate and empathetic but also might have some hesitancy about blowing up the deficit? >> well, i think the so-called covid relief bill had a lot of crap in it i do agree with congressman crowley that things like the extension of the paycheck protection program which actually encourages small businesses -- not encourages, requiring small businesses to keep people on the payroll is important. giving a stimulus, 600, 2,000, i'm okay with that, i think they should have carved that out of the money that was spent on all of the other crap that was out there. a lot of americans feel the same way as well. the way to get the economy going is to get america open again i think businesses, particular ri small businesses across the country have shown they can do that safely. unfortunately places like new york, for example, the last two weeks all indoor dining's been shut down at restaurants even though governor cuomo's own numbers, contact tracing, show that it's about less than 1.5%

come from restaurants. so we have to be smart from this we have to keep our small businesses open and the paycheck protection program helps that as well >> congressman crowley, the blue wave never materialized and fair or not, some people point to some aspects of the democratic party that are way left. and i'm thinking of the squad or aoc. do you take any satisfaction, congressman crowley, of saying i told you so? this is not the way to do it or do you have to go with the party line and say, oh, yeah, it's all great we want everyone in the party that has good ideas to be able to express them? have you ever said, i told you so >> first and foremost, joe, i think you know i'm not a socialist nor is joe biden a socialist by any stretch of the imagination. i also think what's important here is how democrats took control of the house in 2018 was by winning seats in the middle in the middle of the country but in the middle as well. those are the confrontational seats.

there are very few of them quite frankly. governor walker understands that in his own home seats. very few of those seats. nancy pelosi knows how she won the house of representatives and where she lost seats democrats gave some seats back in the 2020 election the key here is going to be holding on to those seats, those moderate seats, not just in the middle of the country, we have some in new jersey and some in new york as well those are the most critical seats here going into the 2022 elections. >> governor walker, i've seen some -- not nice, but i've seen some gop types say aoc is the gift that keeps on giving. too republican what do you expect to happen in georgia? do you think that there's kind of still an after effect down there based on fears or allowing perdue and loeffler to say, look, this is the last fire wall from socialism that's a pretty powerful argument. >> i think it is

i think you're going to see an incredibly close election. it will all be about turnout that's why the president is back there monday for a rally while you've seen the vice president there every week it will be about turnout and making that case you mentioned in the previous segment talking about joe manchin. joe manchin is a good guy and he's a moderate when it doesn't matter he took a pass and voted for kavanaugh. he didn't vote for barrett even though arguably barrett was an easier vote to cast. i think that's a compelling argument for both the republicans running to say to those swing voters, suburban typically republican voters, hey, do you want balance do you want fairness with a democrat house and a democrat in the white house, the only way to ensure that is the republicans in the majority of the united states senate. i think that's a pretty compelling argument. >> all right what's in your political future, joe? >> joe, i'm very, very happy at this moment. spending a great deal of time

with my family love that aspect of it you never know never say never to anything, but i'm enjoying life right now. >> all right i just want to take a single shot of governor walker. can we just put him in a single shot now i imagine -- were you -- did you just happen to be reading that book before we came to you. >> pretty good, huh? >> oh, i'm son, letme just put this back here by accident is that what happened, governor walker >> you're a good author. you know what that's like. no, it's amazing what's in that book talks about what we did almost a decade ago. it's part of the reason why i'm at young americans foundation to make the case for young people, they're not alone. there are people that believe in freedom versus socialism and that will be important going forward. >> that's what -- yeah every day i think i say this, but, well, we live in interesting times, don't we? we should be thankful for that interesting is a nice thing to

call it in terms of the political dynamic. congressman crowley, thank you governor walker, happy new year. >> happy new year. >> i like the shot, the flag, and the book too i understand you have to be shameless when you're doing a book. just a way of the world. it's not even the money. you see it on amazon, blah, blah, thanks we'll see you guys beck >> thanks, joe. when we come back, competition in electric vehicles is heating up of a a stellar year for those stocks. dan ives joins us up next with a breakdown of that sector right now as we head to a break, take a look at chinese ecommerce company jd.com they said that it is exploring a potential spinoff of the cloud and ai unit. we'll be right back. labradoodles, cronuts, skorts.

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that name. a california battery startup is taking the electric vehicle craze since going public on a spac they've already soared more than 300% valued at $40 million. it has a market cap slightly more than ford, $40 billion. quantum scape is not expected to generate significant revenue for another six years. our next guest says quantum scape is the poster child stock for the current ev mania dan ives is managing director of equity at web bush i've learned about codeless software, you don't have to write any code i got a new type of plastic that quickly completely decomposes in the ocean and now we have this ev technology. so the world is moving fast, dan. explain why this one deserves this multiple or if it does? >> yeah. i mean, you look right now in this ev craze that we're seeing,

really what quantum focuses on is what i'll call solid state lithium. what this could really do in terms of what they've demoed, this could increase the charge by 80% from what you see today so really could potentially revolutionize the ev industry relative to the constraints that we've seen on lithium ion, but it's always been the holy grail to get here on ev battery side it appears they have cracked some of the code now just like you talked about, can they ultimately scale this to a factory and ultimately widespread that's going to be the focus investors continuing to view this as potentially the holy grail of ev batteries. >> what about people that actually know something in this area say i'm talking about physicists and i guess it's quantum physics at this point is it possible to have a moore's law progression in ev or are there physical constraints that don't make that possible just

based on the nature of things? >> well, that's always been the issue for years. trying to crack the code if you could have demoed it in terms of what they've figured out on solid state battery technology, it appears at least that they have started to have massive success here i think that's really what's been the eye opener for investors here you know, in terms of -- of course they they're backed by bill gates, vw, strong backers f. they could scale this, it's a game changer that's going to be the question. can this be scaled at a massive level that could really be deployed if it can, it changes the whole paradigm. >> they can't be alone in trying to work on this. what is their proprietary approach to doing this >> yeah, it's really been -- i mean, what i'll call the golden goose is on the metallic lithium side they've figured out from a solid

state perspective how to ultimately deploy this without calling wet electric light if you use dry ones, that could be something that doesn't have issues in cold, which continues to be something on ev and ultimately could per charge get it upwards of 50 to 80% more in terms of per charge. i think that's really the key here if you start to look at 500, 600 miles per charge changes the whole economics of ev. it's everything that tesla as well as all of the other ev players in china are going after. i think it speaks to what you're seeing, not just the gold evs, but parabolic appetite for these stocks, not just tesla but the whole ev food chain. >> six years to profitability. is it over -- is the hype over extended in the stock right now or no? >> i think if they could scale this going to 2023, 2024 then

ultimately there's significant value here i think that's going to be the question right now and i think the stock has sort of put a lot of that good news in if they could scale it and this could really go across the paradigm and this could really become a major player in ev over the next decade. >> just came out on november 27th so 80% more charge and it even charges faster than the other ones. >> yeah, within 15 minutes. >> what? can't even -- >> 15 minutes you could -- >> you can't even make a waffle in 15 minutes. yeah, i want to put the charging stations, you know that -- >> yeah. >> i want a waffle house/ev alliance, so that's what you do. taco bell maybe. anyway -- but not for breakfast. dan, thank you >> thank you. >> we'll keep an eye on this there might be a little bit of froth here as well if we look hard enough, we find it in a lot of places, dan let me know when it's too much

will you call? have you got my email? >> i will. i still think not yet. >> all right i don't know if they ring a bell that's not for ring a bell totals beck >> when we come back, a checkup on two hard-hit sectors. first up, new numbers on the health of restaurants as they struggle through a tough winter. later, potential relief micong for movie theaters "squawk box" will be right back. ♪

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the holiday season is typically a busy time for restaurants. this year it's anything but busy kate rogers has the numbers. what can you tell us >> reporter: hey, becky. that's right the week leading up to christmas is typically one of the busiest ones of the season, but the week of december 20th saw the worst weekly results since mid june according to black box intelligence sales dropping 16.9% traffic down 20.9% year on year. with covid prices spiking and weather getting cooler, things likely won't turn around any time soon. full service concepts of course continue to struggle more than limited and fast food concepts older diners above the age of 65 are staying home in larger numbers and avoiding dining in

110,000 locations are closed either temporarily or permanently. 10,000 closures have happened within the last three months alone. the most recent pandemic aid package is welcome news. restaurants surveyed earlier in the month said they didn't think they would be in business by june without further aid it remains to be seen how many struggling bars, restaurants take this life line and survive until the end. back over to you. joining us with his topics in the restaurant sector is jeffrey bernstein. he is senior restaurant analyst at barclays. jeff, let's run through this the numbers that kate just listed are pretty horrific numbers. you obviously work in a slightly different arena where you're looking at the biggest players is this a scenario where only the biggest restaurant locations are going to survive

>> good morning. it's a fair comment. the bigger chains are in a better position to with stabbed t -- withstand the pressures. if we see closures, it will likely be led by the mom and pops who don't have the balance sheet to withstand the near-term pressure >> i know you've got an over weight on several stocks in this sector, including mcdonald's and starbucks. is it because of what they've been able to do during the pandemic to kind of pivot and make sure people can use the drive up and do things like that or is it because of what you see coming in 2021 >> right so it's one of each. mcdonald's has put up very strong numbers over the past nine months. when you talk about the challenges of covid, people still need to eat. mcdonald's is a very value focussed brand they have the convenience of the drive through. they have done extremely well. for those who are in the market being forward looking, a lot of

investors say when warmer weather comes and the vaccine is in place, where is the big recovery trade starbucks has been challenged during the morning day part and people not leaving their homes, that's hit them hard we don't believe they've been permanently or structurally damaged so for those looking 6 to 12 months, we believe starbucks is a great recovery trade. >> how much of starbucks in your over weight weighting is because people are going to be back in offices and back in morning routines is that a given six months from now? >> not necessarily a given we're still waiting for the word to head back into our offices, but what's amazing is that starbucks can demonstrate the resilience of a brand is the fact in the recent month or two sales are only down single digits the fact that i haven't left my home in the morning for nine months, their sales are down

single digits, they've noted this, the consumer has shifted their routines instead of coming at 7 in the morning, now they're taking a break at 11 a.m. instead of new york city location, they're in the suburban location. sales are shifting but they're holding out extremely well for the entity as a whole. >> you've loss got an over weight rating of dardin restaurants, parent company of olive garden and red lobster what wrought ybrought you to th? they are expecting difficult comps which should have been the most profitable quarter? >> absolutely. yeah depending how you look at it, in the next three months the most challenged subsegment is going to be casual dining. the point referenced is people aren't in a festive mood in the very short term if you looked at fundamentals dardin would be a challenged portfolio brands

they have olive garden and longhorn steakhouse. the strong will survive. nobody wants to see the independent closures when there are, the dardin restaurants across the street will benefit from that when sales have been pressured, they've learned how to manage their cost structure better. when sales return to former levels at some point, timing is still to be determined, when they return dardin will say we will achieve much stronger margins. so optimism on the long term >> jeff, thank you for your time it's good to see you >> thank you, becky. have a happy holiday >> you, too. joe? coming up, help is coming for the struggling entertainment industry by way of the latest relief bill. details are next 83 on the dow, 60 on the nasdaq, 14 and change on the s&p

"squawk box" will be back after a quick break.

relief finally on the way for thousands of live entertainment venues that had to shut their doors when the pandemic began ylan mui joins us. good morning, ylan. >> reporter: joe, that's right this covid relief package was a huge win

$15 billion was carved out to provide direct help to thousands of independent venues like music clubs, movie theaters, museums this was added to the deal in the final weeks of the negotiation. and it's a life line to club owners like blaine tucker out in texas who says that he's not sure when he'll be able to turn the lights back on >> you know, it's not just a place to go out and drink beer and have fun while it is that, too, there are huge economic driver in any society and city around the country. >> reporter: now there was bipartisan support for this program that was spearheaded by gop senator john cornyn and amy klobuchar. two people who don't normally work together. it had the backing of katy perry, billy eilish and alice cooper. >> i don't know one major band that's worth their salt that didn't start in small clubs and without our help they may never reopen

>> reporter: now setting up this program though could take a couple of months and, joe, there are some businesses that may not be able to hold on until then. back to you. >> yeah. i mean, alice cooper, the snakes -- i don't know where the snakes are i don't be know where you keep -- you know, do you -- are you familiar, ylan, with the show that alice would put on in the old days >> reporter: i'm more in the katy perry kind of generation, joe. so if you want to talk about, you know, california girls, we can go there or maybe not, actually maybe not. >> actually, alice i met a few times at a golf tournament it used to be called the hope. he's such a good guy and nothing like the persona -- i don't know what the persona is he's more my time. katy perry okay yeah no snakes in that show i don't think, ylan. >> but there's lots of fireworks. lots of fireworks. >> yeah?

>> just like on your show. >> thanks, ylan. movie theaters took a devastating hit with ticket sales dropping 80% in 2020 streaming becomes even more mainstream will they be able to survive in 2021 joining us now is sarah fischer, action yo axios reporter ed lee, "new york times" reporter got to be an alice cooper fan from way back? >> oh, yeah. absolutely i know about the snakes. >> you do? >> i was always impressed with how he was able to hold them on his shoulder for all of that time on stage. big -- they're heavy >> heavy. >> they are. they're big. >> i don't even know to broach the subject with sarah on any of this anyway, let's talk about the task at hand i feel bad, and i want it to come back and it's all based like so many things on the vaccine and then it will be back probably pent-up demand for

these artists. >> yeah. i feel bad for theater owners, too. a lot of people who will get aid for the federal bill small and medium-sized often family owned theaters. we're not talking about the big chains they can dupe this out on their own. they can raise capital their own ways this goes to the small guys. the nato, national association of theater owners said if it wasn't for this bill, it's not just money, it's ppp, relief from unemployment insurance, if it weren't for that, they estimate 70,000 jobs in the movie industry would be lost it's a huge, huge win for small to mid-sized theaters. it will come back down to when this vaccine is rolled out >> the little places sometimes, sarah's right, are the best, unless you're going to one of those huge, massive, giant

stadium events, the smaller venues, i'd hate to lose any of them. >> yeah. they're designed -- they're intended to be a bit more luxurious and have the big seats, some have couches, they're serving food they have to find ways to get that extra margin. yeah i personally prefer those in theaters as well the other sort of bright spot though is that, you know, the studio industry overall, they do want to keep theaters running. they need to keep that whole theatrical chain running because that's how ultimately they're going to make their money back we're talking about streaming. they're putting things on streaming and maybe they're charging a little something extra in some cases like disney did with mulan the reality is this windowing system that studios have where you go to theaters, rentals, downloads, then they go to the pay one window where they're licensing it to a streamer or a big cable net, that's where the

profit really comes in when they skip all of these window windows, there's a lot of money being left on the table. the studios need them as well. that infrastructure wants to stay intact despite the fact that streaming has become a much bigger part of everyday entertainment. >> sarah, are most places holding on or is it too late for many places? >> for some of the big publicly traded theater chains, they're holding onto the very last threads of their business. the stock has looked like this all year every time there's hopes of a vaccine, it shoots up. every time we have some sort of difficulty deploying the vaccine, it goes back down i think ultimately if we can get most of the public vaccinated by late spring which is what medical experts say is likely the case, they're going to mostly survive here's the question, joe consumers have largely moved on. now that they're able to get so much streaming at home

available, what are they going to actually go back to theaters. my prediction is theater going is going to become even more of a niche industry consumers were going to theaters to watch big action movies, adventure movies they were watching ron-coms at home expect that. expect new forms of theater going. we saw alamo theater group say a few weeks ago, 55% of their revenues were from private parties, from one group renting out a theater, picking out a movie, hosting a gathering there. expect that to be more as they move forward, one family goes and sees a rom-com and heads home for the holidays. >> ed, what do you think >> ultimately i agree with what sara is saying but i do think there will be a moment of vaccine glee when -- hopefully when we get more of the vaccine

out there and people can go back out, people are going to want to go to theaters just for the hell much it. they're going to go to restaurants and hug people there might be a bump. i think there will be that vaccine bump for theaters just because people miss going out. i think longer term the way that sort of the culture is trending, yes, i think theaters will be more of a specialized thing. you know, who knows. i think when the vaccine gets out there there will be some enthusiastic customers saying i want to go see something in the theater. >> millennials are experiential. >> they need that live -- >> anybody can watch a movie at home or stream something at home >> like you and me, we like to stay at home, the older guys. >> i'm fine. >> you don't -- >> yeah, but you know, people want to bring their kids somewhere. nobody wants their kids eating m&ms, getting them in their

couch, it's a delight for parents. >> i like that fake butter it's never the same. different flavored salts >> you can't get that anywhere else. >> no. i don't know i'd feel guilty if i went and looked for something that unhealthy. when it's right there and you smell it, what are you going to do when you walk in the place? anyway, sarah, thank you ed lee, where have you been? >> i've been at home i've been -- you want to call me over, i'll come over it's okay. you have to still let me drive your porsche. >> pent-up demand for seeing you, too, ed we'll have you on every day for two weeks. >> okay. >> i'm not kidding. >> i'm here. >> maybe not three times. >> i don't know. joe, count me in the vaccine glee group i cannot wait to get back out to the movies, the restaurants,

everywhere as soon as the vaccines are here. anyway, a look at life in china one year after the mystery virus in wuhan eunice yoon will join us in china. here's a look at vaccine maker stocks rising after the u.k. approved the astrazeneca oxford vaccine for emergency use. j&j is the one that a lot of people are eyeing as the next potential candidate. it's up .3% this morning "squawk box" will be right back.

it has been one year since a doctor in wuhan, china, warned of an emergency virus in his hospital eunice yoon joins us and what a difference a year makes and where we are right now. >> reporter: absolutely. you mentioned that eye doctor. his name is dr. lee wen young. he was very quickly silenced by the police he caught the virus himself and

then he ended up dying from it so he's still seen here very much as a hero, but since then over the past year life has generally returned to normal for example, this restaurant is pretty full just a day ahead of new year's eve also because of all the lockdowns that we've seen, as well as travel restrictions, especially for people coming into the country, the businesses and the environment has generally come back. the economy is set to post 8% growth in 2021 however, it's not entirely the way that it used to be for example, there have been so many outbreaks of the virus here in beijing 1.2 million people in one district alone were tested for it and i just heard that my plans for the new year's eve holiday have been canceled my point with that is that

people still are losing money because of the coronavirus even here >> eunice, a couple of questions on this. first of all, what were your plans? what got canceled? what are we talking about? is this a dinner out is this a casino, something like that and then, secondly, when you talk about the mini outbreaks t, i think i heard you mention the last time you were on that something like 20 people would get it that's still a pretty stark contrast with what happens here. when you hear 20 people get it, how does that -- you mentioned 1.2 million people being tested, do they shut things down how do they handle these mini outbreaks that are truly mini outbreaks of just 20 people? >> well, so for my plans there was a joint american chamber, uk chamber and australian chamber event, which was -- which was expecting to see hundreds and hundreds of people but was very abruptly canceled and then in terms of the cases, yeah, in beijing, it has been 20

cases. so that's not a whole lot. but the reaction and this has been across the entire year is that whenever there is an outbreak or something that seems like it is growing, the authorities here get on it really, really quickly so they tested -- there was -- they tested this one district, and 1.2 million people, we looked last check, 900,000 of those tests had come back. and they said it is all looking negative but we're still waiting to see what the other, you know, the number of other people there and what the results are but so the authorities get on it really quickly, but i think the aggressive nature is actually a little bit disconcerting because on the one hand, you think, okay, they're being very pointed and aggressive, because they want to try to get this -- get on top of this thing, but it also raises questions because of the lack of transparency, generally here as to whether or not the authorities here know more about a situation than the rest of us >> yeah, i can imagine that is

unnerving. it is amazing, though, you were going to go to an event with hundreds of people are those pretty commonplace now? >> it is and in fact even in the sports bar, they said that they normally would see a crowd of 400 people but tomorrow night they're expecting to see about 200 people so there are more and more events like this, and i know it is -- i'm sure that it seems crazy outside of china, but here people are starting to feel much more comfortable about the way things are >> let's hope we're on our way there. eunice, thank you very much. it is great to see you we will talk to you soon up next, stocks rebounding, but the futures off the highs of the morning, still in positive territory. you're talking about the dow up by 70 points we're going to talk rng moin strategy right after this quick break.

futures now are pointing to a higher open this morning you're talking about the dow futures indicated up by 71 points s&p futures up by 12 the nasdaq up by 6 with two trading days left in 2020, there is lots to talk about concerning the road ahead for the markets. joining us now is krishna namani

for lafayette endowment and eugene profit, soviet awe are la the end of the year with stocks sitting at new highs just off new highs i guess the market is focusing on what 2021 is going to look like, not what this year looked like and the biggest question from that is what comes next? can these gains continue krishna, what do you think >> i think for the equity markets everything is falling in place. you have a vaccine that is getting all the rollout. you have easy policy, you have the little bit of growth momentum, and i think just from a base effect standpoint, 2021 will probably be one of the west ye best years we have seen in a long time. therefore as sort of a growth outlook standpoint, and from a standpoint of how the market behaves, it is difficult to see how the markets don't do well. the real question is what happens on the inflation front

i think there are lots of -- there is a lot of hand waving going on with this, how it will manifest itself and somehow that will undo it i don't think that is likely to be the case. >> you geeugene, you raised ques about any long-term damage that could be there, structural damage in the economy because of the changes in the pain that we have seen this year. how big of a concern is that for you? >> well, becky, we like to point out that we're talking about a year ago, covid came on the scene, and no one that h that in the forecast for 2020. the other thung i think is that inve investors were very optimist big the vaccine rollout, even though it is going out slowly i think any potential hiccup with more restaurants closing down, small business still being hurt as a result of us not being back, the pandemic completely

removed, really is a negative head wind for this market. although we're optimistic six months out, i think the next six months could be very volatile and rocky. >> krishna, do you worry at all about any speculation in the market we have seen stocks rally, even when all the bad news is out there for us to see. >> i mean, there is certain parts of the market for -- where i would say it is getting frothy for sure but i think overall market levels, if you compare the earnings relative to bonds, that certainly is not the case. if you think about asset prices and isolation, we could have all this bull market that we have had over the last 20, 30 years, as, you know, the irrational exuberance from the '90s, for example, but given where bond yields are, you can justify current levels of market and it is not speculation i think earnings outlook is looking good growth is going to be better

so there is -- you know there is a lot to worry about, but not getting overwhelmed. >> you said some areas look frothy like what? >> well, in some parts of the tech market, for example, when you see ipos, you know, tech ipos going up, in a substantial, substantial way, i think one could probably look at that and say that it is probably overdone again, having said that i think the rest of the market, the large cap market you can justify current levels given where bond yields are, and i think bond yields are not going up anytime soon i think under that condition, the markets are going higher rather than low. >> you geneugene, can you tell you like microsoft as one of your favorite stocks >> diverse revenue mix, earnings growth of 16% next year and basically diverse caification as

the business lines >> thank you, both we'll talk to you coming up soon probably not until next year, but that's a couple of days away thank you. >> thanks. >> thank you happy new year >> 30th, 31st, right, a couple of days. i'll see you tomorrow. new year's eve >> i will. >> make sure you join us >> see you >> "squawk on the street" is next good wednesday morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber with morgan brennan and mike santoli carl and jim have the morning off. let's look at futures as we get ready. we got to more trading days of the year, right? there it is. wi we look like a slightly higher open at this point after another gain yesterday for these record-setting markets let's get to our road map this morning. and it begins with some news o