hanging on to a quarter of a percent gain for the dow and the s&p. tesla is best. second best is pell on the, 400% i surprising i thought people would get on theist craze at first but then get tired of working out at home but they are not. >> i agree the staying power is better than expected got to burn off all the oreos. happy new year's eve and happy new year to everybody. "closing bell" begins right now. >> happy new year. >> welcome to "closing bell. i'm sara eisen aling with wilfred frost. the s&p and dow higher with one hour left in the day, the week, in the trading year. a slightly better than expectedid read on weekly jobless claims though millions remain unemployed. bitcoin hovering around record highs, gold having its best year in a decade.

for 2020, here's where we stand. dow is up 6.5% s&p is up 15.5%, and the nasdaq up a whopping 43%. we are on track for record closes for the dow and the s&p at least levels. look we are up .3 right now on the s&p. if you are in due by lucky you it is 2021 over there. we have a live shot of the fireworks there. 59 minutes left of trading in the u.s. nice see the fireworks everybody is wait forth the new year. >> those fireworks are hard to beat but we are going to try because coming up, as always, an action packed show we will have the analyst from bank of america's top picks for 2021 plus we will speak with dr. scott gottlieb about the concerning rise in covid risk and the slower than expected

rollout of the vaccine here in the u.s. first, mike santoli tracks the final trading session of the year and steve liesman has an outlook on economic data for us. >> mike, let's start with you. nasdaq down, but could get record closes for the other two indexes. >> a one-year look and year to date, same thing, minus an hour of the s&p 500 i want to remind folk. look at the start of this year the same angle of ascent the orderly increase the fourth quarter of 2019 s&p was up 10% fourth quarter of this year it is up 11%. it is in a similar mode, upward grind led by tech, people asking if it is too expensive i think it is interesting that we are entering the new year with a lot of the same debates going on about the staying power in the market given the valuations sometimes the best way to get a look of the what has gone on the last year is to take a longer

term view. this is a kbots. i drew this trend line it has been an amazing march over the last decade it has been outperforming the s&p for a very, very long time look at this this launch above the trend line essentially this kell rags that we have seen in the big cap tech stocks top stocks in the s&p 500, all nasdaq stocks, they account for 20% of the s&p difficult to say that the nasdaq can't gain with 40% gains and the tech sector up 40% two years in a row, but we will see. market has not done much during the last two weeks except hold near the highs >> mike n the shorter term -- we have got a long weekend coming up, some event risk as well with the georgia runoff and loss a close eye for the next couple of weeks on potentially rising case counts

i mean the market has slugged politics and case counts off a couple of times. should we expect anything different coming ahead >> it is difficult to say that's going to change just because we are getting another reminder of some of the challenges i think there is a window for some of the weakness whether it is deferred selling into a new tax year. it is january, but leading into the new year we have had a lot of the overheated sectors come off the boil a lot of the speculative recent ipos and things like that we highlighted all week they have connected and the jeff all index has not suffered very much it could be more of a localized pullback the sentiment seems to be happy and content and bullish. maybe it has moderated enough. i think january you have to be on guard for something that comes out of the blue that destabilizes this happy story. certainly ferc i would expect backing and filling and

retrenchment >> let's go to jobless claims. trending in the right direction for the second week in a row steve liesman has a look, and the state of the economy heading into the new year. >> falling claims for the second week in a row but they have been helped by the holiday and confusion over the new programs which just were extended this week claims falling to 787,000. that beat expectations, but they remain four times the normal level, as sara suggested almost 100,000 above the worst week of the financial crisis the labor market remains challenged by the surge in the coronavirus. the 2020 outlook -- actually the simplest i6 ever had to forecast normally you look at inflation, taxes, all kinds of indicators all you have to know is that covid policy is economic policy. two scenarios -- an optimistic

scenario, this is the one that's conventional wisdom on the street rapid vaccine distribution, lockdowns get lifted, unemployment falls faster. growth accelerates in the late spring and early summer. the pessimistic scenario, you get vaccine distribution bottle necks. we are already seeing some of that, consumer confidence rebound slowly, the confidence to go out to movie theaters and restaurants. and more businesses can't make it through and shutter permanently. the fate of the economy in 2021 not in the hands of the economic policy makers. it is in thend that of the vaccine makers and the health of officials ibt doctoring it >> there is also inflation forecasts that are starting to heat up in a way we haven't seen it for a while it is more than the inflationistas that have been calling it forever as a result of quantitative easing how much of a risk is this for 2021 >> it is a risk. i wouldn't say it is a huge risk because of the following i think what the fed would be

concerned about. first they would be looking at an aggregate rice in the price level. not just a few items i said this for a long time. the covid crisis affected demand and supply i think what you may have is you may have a faster rebound in demand than you have in supply we have to re-establish all the trade -- sbrbl trade, re-establish supply lines, get things moving again. it may take some time. when you look at what is happening at the ports right now with some of the influx of goods i think supply comes back and you ends up you have a surge in rices but supply comes along and pushes down the prices so we don't have a long term inflation problem. >> steve, one question for next year we are always focused on the consumer and whether there will be a boost as spending picks up again, trade as mentioned. what about potentially more capex from corporations as we move into an era of perhaps a little more certainty of policy, how big a kicker could that

deliver to gdp next year >> i think it could deliver quite a good kicker. i think that's a really important point to look at what you want to see is see confidence return to executives who make those decisions by the way, wilf, one thing that happened in america right now is we have attentionly incorporated the economy of saudi arabia inside us. that is to say we have a massive oil production inside the u.s. economy. that ends up being, by the way, the marginal swing factor when it comes to a lot of capex in the united states. we have been watching the price of oil to figure that out. but also the kind of confidence to break ground that you require. i think the vaccine again is the big determinant of that. do companies see the rebound in the confidence to purchase the things they are going to be putting out in these new factories and with these new capital expenditures. >> steve liesman thanks so much for that, your positive tone helping the market to a high

111 on the dow >> crude oil, wilf. >> it is just a happy face, steve. keep her there for us throughout the show happy new year in case you are unable to. we will talk about oil, what happened earlier this year and perhaps what might unfold next year later in the show scott gottlieb may be joining us shortly as well. and is a vita assume rainian here's andy listening to my goals and making plans. this is us talking tax-smart investing, managing risk, and all the ways schwab can help me invest. this is andy reminding me how i can keep my investing costs low and that there's no fee to work with him. here's me learning about schwab's satisfaction guarantee. accountability, i like it. so, yeah. andy and i made a good plan.

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it has been a big year for oil, energy the worst performing sector so far -- i mean unlikely to change -- so far this year. down nearly 40%. crude prices fell 20%. exxon today signaling up to $20 billion in writedowns for the fourth quarter it is a sector poised for a rebound in 2021. let's bring in paul sankey

great to see you >> hi. >> first question is outlook for oil prices for next year then maybe we can move on to some of the stocks hopes for a cyclical recovery, have we already seen quite a bit of that in oil prices. >> i don't think so. i will come back to that in just a second i am interested about what you said on the show this afternoon about inflation and the dollar but first, to wish you a very happy new year and invite to you a virtual party tonight on twitter. that's twitter virtual party kenny laigs roll call. you are all invited. the outlook, i think at this time the biggest arbiter i see is related to the dollar in terms of people being very bearish and not being as bullish on oil of course you can't express a bullish view on oil through the stocks i don't think the stocks are really discounting the potential

for much higher inflation or a weaker dollar, which would tend to go together i think over the course of the past year we had a real situation of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger of course what we are seeing here is not only the bankruptcy in chesapeake for instance and consolidation in the sector which you have been following but also each up to activism within exxon there are a number of factors that make us on the misics about 2021 and very optimistic about the 2022 onward time frame once demand is back in 2021, assuming we get jet fuel back, which is key. >> where do you want to be positioned in the majors which clearly have very little risk of being bust going forward or the smaller name who perhaps have gotten through this year and are coming out the other side little stronger. >> i am running a mining company on monday.

we have seessel as a theme we like the big refiners here assuming jet fuel comes back, which is dependent on our recovery from covid. there is a choice between investment and speculation obviously the higher risk names would be obviously more speculative higher risk reward names for example, if you want to go wild, buy oxy warrants or something that's really very high risk, highly indebted companies. but, again, if we get a move in the dollar from 90 on the dxy to 70, i think you will see $70 oil. at that point you really want to be in high risk games. ovv is another one with a lot of debt of course there are the good investments, the chef rons, the concos, diamondbacks the eogs there are a number of ways you can play this. this sector as you know has been horribly left behind in terms of the market not even left behind

actually destroyed i think this is a much better sector with much better management and people are really missing the fact that oil through covid has proven itself to be a huge part of the global economy and really the driver of the global economy the oil aim has not ended as a result of covid. this was a cyclical event to go back to your question. as we recover cyclecally i think they will come through with fewer names, better management and better strategy. >> one thing that's not proving to be cyclical paul is the rise in esg investing and people paying attention to these policies and putting their money in there was a differentiating factor for winners and losers this year and for funds. do any of these oil companies have a good esg profile, an edge there. >> there is e and there is s and this is g. the governance is getting better we all hate the pay structure of they oils, that's improving

generally. the social they can score as good as anyone it boils down to the environmental. frankly that's difficult to get around if you look at the scope three aspect of how oil is consumed and how much carbon is generated frankly there is no real honest way around it. but we do think the companies are doing a very good job of the e, which would be thingslike meth an flaring, general waste, and particularly flaring is the one that upsets me the most, all being greatly improved ultimately i think if you look at rates of change as a positive all the companies basically have a positive rate of change. on scope one and two they can all do very well essentially they are come off a high base and can show them chefs to be very good in this area in terms of rate to change and improvement. they are doing that. stand out names would be hess, conco phillips is excellent and

chevron. w.h.o. is relatively better on esg? some of these names definitely are. i am afraid also no way to get around the scope three aspect. the fact these companies produce and generate oil and that puts out carbon, floss way around it. >> -- >> i don't think so. this year will end up averaging $40 oil. i think they have right sized themselves the history of the industry was to grow and spend too much capex, overspend horribly, basically the strategy was the oil prices would be higher in the future and any growth will be call growth in return now there is a threat through ev, through tesla to the oil age. i think they are handed that

lesson in a big way. we were talking about it for years but really 2020 showed these companies that you have to run the company with a sustainable growing dividend of 40 and then give us the upside when things get better i think we do have a better sector here. if the dollar goss strengthen, which is definitely something that could happen give the consensus, it will be bad for oil prices if 90% of world oil trade is in dollars and it is in my mind a pretty much direct inverse correlation between the two. falling oil prices generally is not good for the sector. if we get a weak dollar with rising inflation -- it is going to be bad -- real inflation i mean it is going to be bad for the tech sector. these companies trading on 202035 sales and kaez hings, you get inflation and that's not going to look good they will go from 400 times to

800 times and the oil companies will look good they are earnings are going to go up and with better strategy cash returns will be going up. >> happy new year. enjoy the twitter rager. >> roll call, you got it. after the break, vaccines are rolling out across the country. but as is often the case the scammers are not far behind. we will tell but the government's plan to stop them next. check out gold, moving a bit higher today, about to wrap up its strongest year in a decade, up 25% bestier for gold and silver since 2010 we'll be right back on "closing bell."

ylan moi with a look at how the government fighting back against coronavirus vaccine scammers. >> reporter: they have opened a dozen investigations into fraud, intellectual property theft and cyber security surrounding the vaccine. the mission is called operation stolen promises 2.0. just before the holidays they seized this website which appears to be a spoof of moderna's and they traced the domain all the way back to malaysia officials say the public should be on alert for the outright

scammed but they say it will become more disperse and harder to combat. >> the longterm threat is once the over 200 fda-approved treatments -- the supply klain chain will expand and we will see more sales on line as well as on platforms. our concern over the long term is that these vaccination treatments could be harmful. >> authorities did say they are coordinating daily with the drug companies to share information. >> so much to stay on top of i was thinking that your story would be how people are trying to jump the line that's another problem they have to figure out how to stay on top of are they able to do that from a federal level? >> well, those prioritizations are really set at the state level. to your point about how desperate people are for some sort of relief from the many months of pandemic, that is exactly the kind of mindset that

these bad actors are preying on. there is no real indication yesterday of how many of these are just individual players versus perhaps organized crime rings or even perhaps traps national or even state actors. all of that right now is part of the risk and the threat they are assessing. as they talk with the drug companies to figure out what does their supply chain look like and what does the government need to do in order to ensure it is protected. >> ylan, thanks for that. still ahead, bank of america's savita usb -- subramani subramanian. and here's a look at the ten-year's path during the course of the year started above 1.5% and now .91. though a sadtey rise since the

end of the summer's low. we are back in a couple of minutes. see yourself. welcome back to the mirror. and know you're not alone because this. come on jessie one more. is the reflection of an unstoppable community in the mirror. (upbeat music)

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31 minutes left to go in this final trading day of 2020 elf beauty shares higher on news of it being added to the s&p 500 small cap 600 replacing brooks automation elf is up more than 50% this year kelcious holding will be added on january th. it will replace capri holdings looking at session highs here for the dow led by one of the biggest losers in the dow this year, intel. >> fahrenheit meanwhile up about double plus 33 time for a cnbc news update with leslie picker.

>> wilf, here's what's happening at this hour just five days before his runoff election, georgia republican senator david perdue has gone into quarantine after coming into close contact with someone with covid-19. the perdue campaign says both the senator and his wife tested negative today in canada, ontario's finance minister resigned after being caught taking a secret vacation on a caribbean island. the canadian government has been warning against non-essential travel since october he was ordered home today. the minister called the vacation, a quote, dumb, dumb mistake. the u.s. has recalled its only aircraft carrier group in the middle east, returning the "uss nimitz" to its home base reduces american fire power in the region and comes only a day after the u.s. flew long-range bombers to the persian gulf, a move military officials say it was intended as a warning to iran against attacking u.s.

forces >> leslie, thank you. 30 minutes left to go before the bill here's where we stand in the markets. i mentioned session high force the dow, up 140 points right now. looking at a record close for that and the s&p 500, up .4. up next, the bitcoin boom. soaring 300s this year on pace for its best year since 2017 could it hit $1 billion by 2025? we will discuss that next on "closing bell. here's an having chart for "closing bell. oj futures up 26%, one.possible reason, people stocking up on vitamin c to boost their immunity during this pandemic year we'll be right back. is the salmon wild-caught? she only eats wild caught. [cash register beeps]

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that was the year in a nutshell with all the winners. bitcoin was another one. the rally doesn't seem to be ending any time soon the cryptocurrency hitting a high last night, surpassing $29,000 it is on pace now for its best year since 2017 surging

by 300s. will the bitcoin boom continue into next year let's bring in the chairman and founder of block, they provide infrastructure and innovation for kk networks. you are a bull, matthew. i think you are expecting $1 million for bitcoin by 2025. here's my question why won't we see a repeat of 2017 where it ran up to a high of 20,000 and collapsed down $3,000. >> it has been an explosive year for bitcoin, up almost four x in terms of price but ultimately, the adoption and accessibility. it has been the best performing asset over the last ten years and it is just getting started i think the key piece for 2020 was the pandemic and the catalyst it created in terms of folks looking for a shelter for inflation, something that's not

correlated the intersection of all of that pointed to bitcoin versus gold and we are just getting started. i think the adoption piece is a very important narrative of 2020 where you have retail platforms like square, paypal, robinhood which is super rich in the demographic of millennials you have institutions, citi, fidelity, and mass mutual, mass mutual has bitcoin that's an amazing thing. they had to go through a crazy amount of regulatory scrutiny in order to do that that is thought leadership level stuff. you synthesize all of that down and you have a ton of demand for a fixed supply there is only a certain amount mined on a daily basis those are kicked into gear and that's what happened in 2020. >> i get the example but you can't do stuff with bitcoin. you can't buy stuff with it. it is not a real currency in

that way when you say adoption, doesn't it have to get to the next level for what you are talking about >> absolutely. people put bitcoin into a particular box is it a commodity? is it a currency and sometimes people think of it as a platypus. it does a lot of things. and it's kinds of an advanced form of money. right now, the product market fit for bitcoin is store of value. the competitor for that is gold. right now, bitcoin is about 5% of gold market company but it is technology it is software, it is infrastructure and it is a fastr faster way of utilizing store value technology. >> matthew, it is the biggest risk to regulation do you think the massive and fast rise this year actually increases the risk of regulation as governments of course won't want to lose control of money supply >> that's a great question i look at 2021 as the start of the roaring '20s for bitcoin

it will continue to compound on itself then you will say what could disrupt the party? i think the regulatory dynamics could be of consequence. you look at what the u.s. needs to do -- this is not saying it has built a prescription for the irs, s.e.c., treasury, this is about a national treasury for the u.s. the u.s. needs to get behind this technology and behind this system in order to be competitive. you are seeing people in china, singapore, switzerland having much clearer regulatory frameworks for the adoption of this technology. i think that's going to be a footnote to bitcoin's story until that gets clarified. >> matthew, going behind the technology is different from getting behind bitcoin itself. that's always been part of the discussion i guess it leads to another question, which is does bitcoin breaking out to the

scale it has, 5% of gold's market cap, as i think you said, mean the writing is on the wall for the other cryptocurrency options out there, only one can reach critical mass. >> i think for store of value bitcoin has won that race. it bunched through 100 billion now it is at half a trillion to catch up to that innovation and the network effect that that's created is very difficult to compete with. there are thousands of other cryptocurrencies out there for different use cases and different rails. but for the store value narrative, something that competes in a $100 trillion market of stored value gold, real estate, commodities, bitcoin is the clear winner right now and it is positioned to be the clear winner long term. >> how much is the coin based ipo going to be a litmus test for the legitimacy and staying power? >> i think that's a great -- it will burnish 2021 in terms of valuations it kind of reminds me of paypal

when it spun out of e-bay and what was the relative value or what was going to be the value of paypal. i think coin base and its valuation, the last was about $8 billion. i will be curious to see what it trades at once it's public that will also usher in other ipos, the same stuff on block phi, e toro, and even block cap. the other part of that, not only the ipos and the spacs that will happen in crypto and bitcoin is the m&a. the m&a is going to be unique. it is going to be not just banks, but it is going to be kettive in big tech. big tech and wall street are going to be going after the same assets as crypto and bitcoin comes into the mainstream.

>> we had an analyst on a couple minutes ago and asked how big of a stress the dollar weaken would be for oil does bitcoin need the dollar to keep rallying? >> i think bitcoin is going to play through its store of value and it is kind of a flight to a better treasury reserve asset. i think we are seeing that get unpacked look at what micro strategy has done by the bitcoinization of their balance sheet. that will continue through the rest of treat with and the fortune 500, meaning what michael sailor and marcus did was accumulate a lot of bitcoin and not only put their money where their mouth is but also open source and educate and provide a framework for other companies, companies that are regulated and have boards, and giving them that path to bitcoin on their balance sheet i think that will be a continued catalyst in 2021

>> matthew, thank you for joining us >> thanks for having me. happy new year, everybody. >> and to you as well. up next, the semisurge in fubo tv flops. we are rounding out the final minutes of trade when we take you inside the last "mke neofhe year. as a reminder you can always watch or listen to us live on the go on the cnbc app "closing bell," back in a couple

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cnbc's senior markets commentator mike santoli here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day today we have stephanie link from high tower with us. let's kick things off with the broader markets. the dow and the s&p rallying in the final moments of trade both on track for record closes the nasdaq in the red today, but on track for its bestierly performance since 2009 the nasdaq hovering around the flat line. down three basis points or so at the moment mike, final 20 minutes, financials lead, energy bottoms, two of the cyclical sectors that a lot of people are hopeful for next year moving this opposite directions today. >> they are. definitely a little bit of an anti-growth flavor to this little burst higher. don't know really if we should make too much of it except it's a little bit of a remind hear the this feared rebalancing at the ends of the year out of

stocks into bonds, people thought it might be the case we had a wide performance spread for the quarter to date and month to date, it hasn't really happened as people are handicapping how the end of the final trading day might go it didn't seem there would be a rush in that direction i think people are doing as little as they need to do getting into next year and market hovering near its highs in the absence of other things is very much in character for what we have seen in the last couple of months. >> i know you are a long term bull, stephanie, and pretty optimistic do you see this market, parts of it, like tech, as overbought right now? >> well, tech has had a huge run. and certain stocks within tech, stay-at-home still up triple digits i could see this sector mean revert a little bit in the beginning of the first part of the year especially if we start to get the fiscal checks out the door and you see a little bit of a stabilization within the economy. because those -- the numbers have actually been, in terms of

the economic data, they have actually been kind of softening, if you will. so i think if you get the fiscal into the system, you see a firming in the economic data, then you get the more, you know, reopen and economically sensitive start to do well it would be at the expense of technology i own tech i have to be honest, though, i have been trimming tech. microsoft, and salesforce, i have been looking for laggards, because that's my version of playing the dog of the dow looking at the companies that lagged forti net really lagged. i bought union pacific it really lagged not only in the market but the overall sector as well then i bought a little bit of vf corp. and tjx. sold a little bit of nike. i know you are not going to be happy but taking gains and wilf for you, continuing to buy wells fargo. >> not happy or sad.

>> i was going to ask about it steph. i know your other bank holding has been morgan stanley it has absolutely soared even though it was already one of the relative outperformers coming into the fourth quarter. are you tempted to take profits from that and buy more wells fargo? >> if anything, i want to just increase my overall financial services exposure. i did that with blackstone we talked about that a couple of week ago i have slowly been adding to some of the other names. wells fargo is still down 43% on the year i am hope you go get some sort of a mean revert morgan stanley, the m&a strategy he is diversifying away from the yield curve, and they announced a $10 million buyback and i think they will do more when they can even more i like it. it is attractive it in the as cheap as wells but

doesn't have as many problems. i want to have -- my barbell theme overall for my portfolio, it is the same for financial, i want some winners and mean revision stories that play catchup. >> the telet's go to the chip stocks with josh lip ton. >> this is an important trend for chip investors to watch both next year and beyond that's tech companies, big tech companies becoming chip designers. one well-known example would be apple, unveiling those new macs swapping in its own chips and out intel chips. that strategy makes sense, lower costs improving performance. traditional chip makers are making their own big bets. nvidia buying arm. intel is the most at risk with this trim with its core markets under attack from all sides.

intel stock down nearly 20% this year and now facing new pressure from dan lobes >> josh lipton, thank you. steph, do you play a atchup with intel or stick with winners. nvidia up 121% amend up 100%. i sold invidai i am probably going to have sellers remorse on that one. but i added more to amd. i don't think you want to go to intel even though it is very, very tempting. it is ten times earnings, 2.7-year-old now you have pressure from outside. and i just feel like they dropped the ball on execution. it took them forever to get the ten nanometer technology out the door now they pushed out seven. they gave amd a three-year advantage. i can't imagine the market share losses they are going to see i think swann is a better sfo

than a ceo they had a hard time finding a replacement for the last ceo we will see what happens i would rather own let's say a broad com. it is not expensive. it gives you a three yield and they have a lot things going well in m&a and software and 5g. i also own nxpi. it has auto exposure 40% of their revenues are in auto exposures that lagged too, those are the two i like for 2021. i am going to avoid intel for the time being. >> session highs as we speak, up nearly 200 on the dow. nasdaq joining the part, up .1%. all three averages in the green as we head to the close. some hedge funds were able to put up impressive returns in this year. leslie picker has breakdown for us. >> reporter: those that showed some of the best performance tended to be equities propels with a human at the helm

funds that focus on energy, health care and technology stocks are on pace to beat the s&p 500 this year. when combining all strategies, smaller funds did better because on a fund weighted base tis average return for the industry was about 7% but an asset weighted basis it is 1.7%. that's thanks in part to larger quantity oriented funds in the red this year. >> leslie, is there growing demand and interest? to deaf data on that in the flows because of this outperformance is there a belief that the decade ahead will be better. >> i would say one data point is to look at launches versus liquidations launches during the third quarter which we have fresh data from yesterday, 151 new launch inside the third quarter, which superseded that of liquidation we saw net new launches in the

third quarter for the first time in almost two years. i think that says a lot about the industry, the fact there were a lot of managers out there raising money and there were a lot of lps out there willing to give them money. >> leslie picker thank you mike, what do you think about the market environment for 2021 and what that bodes for the hedge fund industry and these new funds. >> i mean, it -- just on paper the makings are there to have a stock selector, sector selector's market. we talked about the concentration of the rise in the market until especially labor day or so. if you didn't own an outsized portion of those handful of stocks what happened, too, a lot of positions have gotten cleaned out. heavily loaded stocks have been slow in this fourth quarter. it seems like you would have the makings to play the recent winners against up and commerce.

we have seen these conditions before it is a very difficult market to beat i understand the quantity fund pressure because nobody wrote an algorithm that would have matched up to the path of this year. >> that is for sure. how about shares of fubo tv. plunging again, down nearly 10%. down nearly 30% since the lock up expired last week, it was on a tear. after needham's lawyer martin doubled her price target to 60 here she was last week talking about why she is bullish on fubo. >> it is a play on connected telephones growth or streaming growth it also benefits from strong advertising revenue dpland next year if we come out of the pandemic if we don't it has a subscription revenue stream model. i think sports is going to go back to normal next year and it is a sports first streaming service. >> it still overhall had a good

run. i wonder if that was the top after she came on "closing bell" after such a good start. we were giving her credit. >> the thing was going up vertically as she was speaking i think what it showed you -- it never had the crazy overshoot to the upside it didn't fine the speculators finding the next roku that was the pattern, find the business model that matches the big winners. you would call it a successful ipo, $10 and months later in the 20s. but because it has the huge blowoff it is looking like a less stable situation. also a challenged business model. you have companies that have stakes they have been selling seemingly in the last couple of days and will be continuing to if they haven't finished >> steph, a challenge to other more established streaming service multiples, or not? >> i don't know. i mean you have real business

models, real profitability at some companies i am waiting for disney to actually get more profitable but they are certainly showing the results. it's not -- you can't dispute it the only thing i could say is all of these stocks are up so much, and there is still so much competition coming that to me is what i struggle with they still have to spend they still have to invest. there is not a lot of operating leverage there is not a lot of profitability and there is a ton of competition at the same time they have runny normously. disney is one is an overrun over owned stock. i have loved it in the past. i am not in love with it now >> up 24%. one of the best performers in the dow. one who has beaten is nike why are you trimming because of the run i am overweight.

basically the last month i am looking at laggards, where i think there is opportunity, where expectations are really low. i know, i say the same thing about costco nike is a compounder great company. i love what they are doing dtc they are blowing away the competition. nothing bad is going on other than the valuation is extended i am looking around within the consumer discretionary space that's not really owned, it is tjx, they are the ultimate reopen story people like to treasure hunt they have great brands and they made a $1 billion acquisition which says the me they have lot of confidence in what they are seeing in their own business. >> we have got must under two minutes left of trade for the year mike what are the internals showing. >> improved in the last little bit. new york stock exchange up versus down volume still negative, but it had been more skewed to the downside

prior. relatively heavy volume but a lot of it is knitting up and rebalancing. look at the call weighted s&p 500 against the regular market waited version over the last six months you see them tracking together then the average stock has taken off, november, december. we will see if it becomes more of a broadening market next year also the volatility index remains very, very elevated relative to how calm the markets have been. volatility has been very low there has been hedging about january event risks. we will see if that gets in the way after the new year. >> one minute. let's see where we are appropriately we are hitting new intraday record highs, buying action into the close. the dow with session highs up to 207 points we are on track to close at a record high. it would be the 14th record close of 2020. s&p 500 also tracking a record

close and at an up tre day record high. this would be the 33rd rorz close of 2020. it has been that kind of year despite a once in a generation pandemic the s&p 500 for the week is higher obviously higher for the month and higher for the year. it's going to go up with a gain of about 16% for the year. record closes. and ticked positive into record territory for the nasdaq, fourth positive day in the last five. by far the biggest winner up 43% or so for the year of 2020 going out with a bang, on a high note, wilfred, after a lot of tumult in between. >> a record high for the nasdaq -- no, just a hair back at the close nasdaq not quite a record close on the final day of trade. fractionally off it. record close force the s&p and the dow and session highs up 200 points or so for the dow at the close. welcome to "closing bell," i'm wilfred frost along with sara eisen and mike santoli, cnbc

senior markets comment tithe tater, up two thirds of a percent for the s&p and dow. record close for them. nasdaq up .14% a. point or so away from a record close it is midnight in moscow here's a live look at new year's eve celebrations there no fireworks yet but very happy new year to any viewers and friends in russia. happy new year there go the fireworks coming up on our show, savita u subramanian gives us her targets on the sectors that could outperform next year plus former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb will join us the talk about the vaccine rollout

stephanie link still with us and another joins the conversation as well first let's go to bob pisani in a full review for the year that was the market bob, all in russian; is that right? >> moscow popped the cork over there wilf we closed at a historic high that doesn't happen very often at the end of the year it has only happened eight times since 128. i was trying to vote on the stock of the year. i had to do three of them. apple, microsoft, and amazon look at the moves up 57% of the return on the s&p 500 is those three stocks. apple, microsoft, and amazon 57% of the return on the s&p 500. sector of the year, that was an easy one, i didn't have to hesitate semiconductors my hechbts, they are in everything, everywhere we go, there are semiconductors you can see that in the returns. that was a no brainer for sector of the year. how about the investment trend

of the year? what really mattered that was easy, too sematic tech etf i point out every day people are buying stocks. they like solar stocks, they like online retail they like clouds services, they like e sports. they like cyber skurmtd they bundle them together in these etfs and they love trading them and they drove the prices up all throughout the year. we should be reminded even though we are up 16% for the year there were significant laggards and real destruction particularly in the energy space, objection dental down 60%. exxon down 40% the s&p energy index is only 2% of the s&p now we noted disruption in the travel and airline and the real estate agency. simon property group down 43%. as for the s&p 500, let me remind everybody, we are on one heck of a tear i don't mean in the 2020 i mean in the last 11 years.

the s&p 500 up 16% but we have only had two down years in the last 11 since 2010, the s&p 500 up 240%. sara, wilf, mike, happy new year thank goodness 2020 is over. i look forward to being with all three of you in 2021. >> good riddance, thank you, bob. bob pisani, happy new year to you my friend. mike, it is hard to believe that the s&p 500 is at a record high, up 16% in the nasdaq up 43 in a year where we had a once in a lifetime pandemic, where we locked down our economy, unemployment skyrockets to the high of 14.8%, where we were losing 20 million jobs her month. and we end with these kinds of market gains it is hard to fathom. >> it is we have never seen anything with that kind of compressed time line around it we had this flash recession, market shock what is interesting is that we went from less than a year ago a

very late cycle environment. remember the prior year, the yield curb inverted. 3.5% unemployment. fed is going to have to raise rates. project -- it was all about when the cycle was going to peter out. then the cycle was nuked by the shock and we had this economic shutdown now the policy response explains a lot of what happened if you want to call it $8 trillion in total monetary stimulus and this massive risk ab tight getting back into the market i didn't foresee the magnitude but in stap it is giving us the kinds of thing we see at a v bottom early cycle move. the problem is we seem to have late something valuations and sentiment. i don't know how that playsout next year because not everything

is in tune. >> steve you have been reminded of 1999 a little bit this year >> yeah, thanks wilf there is definitely a bunch of parallels. i mean first of all one of the things we saw in 1999 was we democrat advertised investing in a way we had never done before by internet brokerage. we democraticized it again by making it free and fractional shares if want more of something, make it free. some of the thematics that we see, the whiz bang technology ideas that people are gravitating towards. the embracing of iske are. it all has a 1999 feel 1999 was abetted by a massive increase in liquidity thanks to y 2k that had a definitive end. as of right now, we dpn know when the fed is going to pull the plug. >> steph, the public embrace of the bull market should be bullish, right but there are signs of froth, as

steve mentioned. >> but there is also tons of skeptics also out there. which is a good indicator, a contrarian indicator we have never seen liquidity like this in our lifetime. i doubt we will again. $90 trillion of global stimulus around the world we just got more here in the u.s. we might get more after biden's inauguration we will have to see. we also have to see what the congress looks like. the koint is, this is not going to change in the near term not going to change even in the next year. the feds on putts are saying end of 250 or 2023 is the next time they are actually going to raise rates, raise rates you have all of this liquidity, low interest rates even if they do inch up we are going to watch the velocity of the move we also look at the dollar you look at currencies all the time you are the expert, you know more than i do but -- overcrowded. >> weaker dollar -- it is

overcrowded. i don't think it crashes from here i don't see in this environment w all this liquidity, with all this debt for our dollar to really explode to the upside maybe we just need the dollar to just stabilize that's good enough for u.s. mental health national companies. next year i think it is going to be a stock picker's market but it is going to be different sectors leading us it might just be the cyclicals that's what i am beth on but i still have a diversified portfolio because i believe in secular growth and secular technology and also in health care technology. there are at love areas that you can invest in that aren't as crowded. that keeps me more positive that we have had such a fooik spike higher from the march lows. >> everyone stick with us. a big market catalyst could be coming in the first week of the new year investors of course closely watching the georgia special election and what the outcome to be and might mean for the markets. ylan moi has the latest for us

>> there has just ban last-minute shakeup in this race as gop senator david perdue announces he is in quarantine after coming into close contact with someone who has covid now his campaign said he did test negative today that he is following cdc guidelines but of course this comes just days before his critical race for a runoff against democrat jon ossoff loeffler is facing off against warnock. right now both democrats are leading in polls but they are within the margin of error more than 2.8 early voting ballots have been cast that underscores the level of interest this this race because the stakes will not only be the balance of power in the senate also whether or not joe biden can push his agenda through capitol hill. >> ylan, the polling points

moved away from republicans in the last weeks is that because of president trump's demand for $2,000 stimulus checks? is that backfiring >> there are a couple of things at play. one is that the president put them on the spot asking them to support those $2,000 stimulus checks that was a tough call for those senators that changed the political dynamic in the race as well. also the president has been calling out georgia's elections and wondering whether or not they would actually be fair. what we are seeing is that there is sort of a surge in democrats who are voting in these early ballots, but republican districts are not turning out in the numbers that the gop had hoped they would that is why we are seeing some of the earlien leaning towards democratic but of course there is a ways to go before the actual voting day. >> steve, what -- ylan, thank you very much for that steve, what does the market want

to see here? >> well, in theory what the market wants to see would be a divided government that was ostensibly the reason for the last shooting up of the market since the election. but yet it is not pricing in a ton of fear that we do get a democratic race. watching volatility very closely there is a tick up for volatility into next week with the elections and any challenges to the electoral college but it pales in comparison to the kblild volume tilts we see further out. in many ways the market is really kind of looking past this i wonder if that's a mistake there is some skew we see to the downside being priced in there are some hedgers in this but in terms of the markets, they are sanguine, the markets have been rewarding risk taking all along and right now i think they are looking through this

and thinking no matter what happens we will be fine. which is not necessarily the case. >> would you make, steph, a different calculus for growth next year if the democrats get control of the senate and therefore they would have the presidency, the senate, and the house? does that change the growth calculus >> no. do you know why? while we will see more taxes and more regulation we will likely get more stimulus. that keeps fuelling the beast. we calculated that if you fete a blue wave -- first and foremost i don't think the market is going the look through a blue wave i think they are absolutely expecting the republicans to win. they want gridlock just steve just mentioned but if a blue wave comes i think you could get a sizable pullback in the market from the enormous run that we have had because again it is the unknown. we calculated the tax increase, if you add up all of biden's proposals, that's a 10% hit on s&p 500 earnings that's the negative.

the more regulation, that's the negative but if you get more stimulus and you have companies doing an amazing job restructuring their businesses and they are going to continue do that. i think the weakness should be bought we'll see. i think the volatility is going to creep higher definitely next week we will see. >> stephanie like, steve sossny thank you for joining us with us. >> happy new year. >> up next, bank of america's savita subramanian on sectors she thinks you can make money in 2021. plus, we will reveal the top veost searched tickers in 2021 boeing taking the number five spot we will reveal the rest throughout the show. see if you can guess we'll be right back. 17 education & technology is a

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with adyen, the payments platform that delivers convenience for all. adyen. business. not boundaries. welcome back the dow and s&p closing at record high inside the final trading day of the year. and tech having a banner year. nasdaq surged 43%, its best year since 2009 with more on how to position yourself for 2021, savita subramanian joins us with bank of america securities. great to have you. thank you for joining us clearly, phenomenal market performance this year, particularly for the tech stocks does tech lead again next year >> i think tech can do really well next year but i think the leadership we saw this year is not likely to replicate.

the reason i say this is that if you look at positions, if you look at valuations, if you just look at the sort of crowded elements for these technology leaders, you know, there is not that much buying pressure. you know, the world is already long tech. i think there are other parts of the market that look incrementally interesting as we move to a more reopening economy. our view is maybe you buy -- you continue to buy gdp-sensitive tech so companies that benefit from unit volume sales growth this could include some semiconductors but the story for secular growth tech i think takes a back seat to some of the more cyclical areas market that isn't really seen daylight for a long time. that's where we would be repositioning our portfolios >> for those cyclical sectors, are returns going to be driven by multiple expansion or by eps growth >> i think next year is going to be a year where earnings is the

big story. i think we could see a little bit of multiple compression for the overall market because, you know, i think what the market did this year kind of makes sense. it basically anticipated a really strong 20%-plus earning recovery in 2021 which is great but, you know, as the market discounts this, there is less upside from a multiple perspective. and in my view you are really going to see earnings kick in over the next 12 months. so i think next year is going to be better for s&p earnings than multiples. i think next year is going to be better for the economy than for the stock market and i think next year is the year where you really want to do the opposite of a lot of the things that worked this year. >> so let's talk about energy in particular a few things could have worked for energy, which is the weaker u.s. dollar, the return in global demand, especially out of china. and yet this is a sector that's still down, what, 40% so far

this year. some think it is secularly challenged by forces like green energy and that's certainly where the biden administration is looking anyway. >> yeah. absolutely so, sara, i think that is a great point. but my take on that is that the damage is already done for energy i think what was interesting, this year, despite the fact we had a friendlier administration for energy companies as you pointed out they did miserably and the companies did%ly because you had two things going on. a recession as the esg momentum where you have esg investors buying -- selling, purging energy from their portfolios so my sense is, we are at a point now where the average fund is almost 50% underweight energy energy is de minimus in institutional portfolios individuals institutions have purged energy from their portfolios and i think over the next 12 months what we see is energy

companies essentially repositioning themselves for a greener future possibly acquiring some clean plays kind of reinventing themselves and playing capital disciplined. on top of that you are going to have a monstrous economic recovery off of a very low base that can't not benefit some of the energy stocks. we are bullish on energy longer term, i agree, i think there are secular head winds and you want to think carefully about which stocks you buy within the sector. overall i think there is a trade in energy that could last a lot longer than folks are expecting or are positioned for. that could be the pain trade next year. inflation, energy, a lot of the areas of the market that nobody seems to be really whole heartedly expecting in the next 12 months. >> what is your view on bonds over the next 12 months? >> bonds, i think, are the one place you don't want to be

and here's why i say that. i think the probability of an inflation surprise next year is higher than the market is currently pricing in and that the bond market is pricing in if you think about it we have had a halt in the recovery we had a massive depolice stationary spike this year you typically see inflation rise when you are coming out of a recession. and on top of that you are going to have certain pockets of the market that are going to be really tight from the fact that they were literally shut down for, you know, a 12-month period so i think that that inflationary pressure -- you know, on top of the fact that we had money printing for a decade from every central bank you can think of, i think that potential for an inflationary upside surprise is something that we need to factor in a little bit more carefully than the market is actually pricing in inflation is bad for bonds

it is good for stocks whose earnings are nom gnat. stick with stocks over bonds for the next 12 months but bonts don't look particularly attractive to us at this point i think this is the first year where you are not going to see great gains from the bond markets. >> good for bonds even if the federal reserve has to rethink keeping rates low for years and parring back asset purchases. >> i think asset purchases have driven a lot of the bond-like stocks to outperforming. if you are looking a the market overall, you have had very weak performance within the cyclical areas economy. and i think that that's what's going to drive the market marginally higher. that said i don't think the s&p 500 is where you want to be next year i think you want to be in smaller companies. maybe you want to be in emerging markets. areas of the world or indices that are more cyclecally geared.

>> savita thank you. >> happy new year. >> up next, mike is back with a look at the impact of record low borrowing costs. then why is it taking so long to get people the vaccine in this country? could it delay our return to normal next year we will get some answers from dr. scott gottlieb next. amazon in at number four, if fourth most searched ticker. five was boeing. four was amazon. we will tell you the next three over the course of the next hour watch or listen to us live, on the go on the cnbc website or on the cnbc app we'll be right back.

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stocks close out 2020 on a high note, on a record high n fact, up more than 16% for the year let's go back to mike santoli taking a look at the capital market backdrop heading into 2021 final dashboard of the year mike, make it a good one. >> the backdrop is incredibly generous to companies and highly liquid this is the yield on the ten-year treasury inflation protected security it has been negative, 1.08 what this means is market implied inflation expectations around 2%.

this is a tremendous tail win for all kinds of valuations for all kinds of assets. if you have real negative yields on the risk free asset riskier assets are going to be worth more that was driving a lot of the nasdaq much of the year. look at high yield corporate bonds. not high yield down here in the threes. it obviously crashed from the panicky levels up here we have never seen it this low on a nominal base. spreads are tight as well. clearly almost all companies can turn themselves out, turn out their debt and bolster their beats. that happened in tremendous amounts this year. equity issuance. the offering window is wide open all kinds of equity markets, equity types, have been shoved out the door it has been very, very receptive to it, the market has. what does it mean? can it get any better is really the question we have gotten benefit and we are going to see more equities in a year when cane boys and

robinhood will become public does that mean it is the start of something or thing are overheated that is going to be an interesting story next year. >> hard to envisage it is going to be a better year next year for the investment banks than it was this year. >> we are missing the window that's what dr. scott gottlieb has said on vaccine deployment he will outline the risk to next year's recovery next our buck. sg else that's good to know? if you have medicare and medicaid you may be able to get more healthcare benefits through a humana medicare advantage plan. call the number on your screen now and speak to a licensed humana sales agent to see if you qualify. learn about plans that could give you more healthcare benefits than you have today. depending on the plan you choose, you could have your doctor, hospital and prescription drug coverage in one convenient plan. from humana, a company with nearly 60 years of experience in the

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surpassing a record 125,000. we also saw a record number of deaths reported in a single day yesterday, 3,744 covid deaths according to johns hopkins university this all comes as more cases of that fast-spreading variant emerges in parts of this country. joining us now, former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb. he is a cnbc contributor, sits on the boards of united stateser and i will lum in a. your tweet today where you say we have this narrow window or had this narrow window to deploy the vaccine rapidly enough to deploy the trajectory of the disease in january what has gone wrong? the states the federal government the companies? what is happening. >> look, the federal government made a decision to stockpile 55% of the doses they wanted to reserve the second dose for everyone who received the first dose and not use the supply that became available in january to suffice

for providing the second doses that people were going to need after getting the first dose then they made an decision to stock bile 5% for a safety stock. so they are deploying 45% of the vaccines that were available and now we are not able to deliver that 45% we had a narrow window of student to use the vaccine as a tool to try to affect the current epidemic the wave we are in is going the play out over the next four to six weeks. the vaccine we know is partially protective after the first dose. we don't know the full benefit but there is benefit after the first dose if you can get more doses in people's arms especially vulnerable individuals you can start to reduce death and disease of the current wave. i don't think if there is not a sense we can use it in that way or not enough urgency to try to get it deployed rapidly in order to have that protect. >> you are calling on operation warp speed to do more, stockpile

more and get it out faster >> i would be prying to get out more vaccine right now into people's arms to try to affect the current wave, especially vulnerable individuals a lot of people are going to get infected between now and the end of january and a lot more people are going to die. in the nursing homes right now 60,000 people a week in nursing homes are becoming infected with covid. 20% of them are going to succumb to the infection that's the rate of death in the nursing homes right now. if we could have gotten the nursing homes vaccinated quickly that would have a big impact some of them just started this week i think we need a sense of urgency. the new variant adds to that risk because if we don't control this epidemic wave more quickly and the vaccine is tool to do that it creates opportunity for the variant to spread more widely fit gets a foot hold in the united states that could extend out the length of the current epidemic wave we are sperptsing

right now. >> dr. gottlieb, the uk seems to think they could be back to normal by april and a number of educated voices have echoed that prediction over the last week or so how is that possible with the u.s. seemingly so far behind its aim for vaccinations and what are the possibilities to close that gap? >> look, i think prevalence is going to decline sharply as we head into the spring and the summer i think the prevalence of this infection this summer going to be extremely low and we will be back to some semblance of normal i think the risk is really to the fall and the winter and it is important to make sure we have the vaccine widely deployed to reduce the risk next fall and winter i am talking about what is going to happen in the next four to six weeks. we are going to experience the hardest month of this epidemic is january the next 30 days we need to deploy all of our tools effectively. antibody drugs are not deploying

as well. they are sitting on a shelf. the one therapy proven to reduce the severity of covid is sitting on a shelf. >> we got data from regeneron showing it works in hospitalized patients as well part of the problem, correct me if i'm wrong, is that it was authorized only for people not hospitalized yet but considered my risk but has to be administered in the hospital the use cases were hard to tell. if they can give it to people who are not hospitalized, the regeneron and lily antibodies wouldn't it make a difference? >> it will be helpful. but the greatest benefit is going to be in people newly diagnosed and not very sick. that's what we have seen with antibodies in other viral diseases the antibody we developed against ebola, regeneron's drug it was effective when used early in theers could of ebola and when it was used later in

the disease it wasn't as effective. once you have so much virus on board it is hard to mop it up. the best way to use this antibody is to use it early. part of the challenge is it was authorized for use in an observed setting, not for home use. if you can use it in the home, i think that could potentially get more widespread use of the drug. because a lot of people when they are newly diagnosed with covid don't want to come into a hospital or some special infusion site for a two or three hour infusion. if we have nurses go into homes to infuse these drugs i think we could deliverly more effectively, particularly to the older generation, more like low to benefit. >> we have the vaccines, we have the therapeutic, we have the testing in a bigger and more accessible way and here we are at the worst point of the epidemic dr. gottlieb, you always said this was a 2020 story.

have you altered that based on the way we have been able to roll this out and handle the crisis. >> to your point we have a much better tool box and we are not use it effectively it is a 2020 story 2020 is not going to be 2018, not going to be life the way we knew it in 2018. we are going to be vigil ant and face risks but we don't need to face epidemic iske are especially with the tool box we have, we need to use it effectively. we need to continue to study the vaccines to make sure they are safe and effective but we need to make better use of the tools we have if we are going to reduce the risk dramatically we are not doing it right now, not with the sense of urgency we need to reduce what is going to happen over the next month we can save lives if we are more aggressive over the next 30 days. >> with that in mind should the fda rethink not yet giving

emergency use authorization to the astrazeneca vaccine? i guess my point is you can still have a list of preferences of which vaccine is the best, but would it make sense to have more available sooner? >> yeah. i don't have a good sense of the data around the astrazeneca vaccine. and i would defer to the agency. i think the fda has -- that division, that vaccine decision at fda has made prudent decisions. there are going to be other vaccines coming onto the market. j&j, that's good company, they know how to develop vaccines it is a proven platform. the bottom line is we have more vaccine than we are distributing simply making another vaccine available isn't going to change the quakes of what's going on in the estates right now. we have stockpiled vaccine 44% of the vaccine being forward deployed isn't being delivered efficiently. frankly i would be turning to walmart and cvs and walgreens right now and some of the other commercial entities that know how to get vaccines in arms and

implore them to start deploying them aggressively. hhs and the federal government exerted a lot of control over the distribution of the vaccines and how they are going to be delivered. that control creates friction. i think we are seeing some of the consequences of that friction in the marketplace. >> some questions dr. gottlieb when moderna revealed it is giving its vaccine to employees and to board members you sit on the board of pfizer with the other vaccine have you received the vaccine? are bored members there getting it >> i have not. pfizer put out a statement that they are going to vaccinate people when they turn comes up relative to the cdc guidance i wouldn't expect the board members or myself to be vaccinated i am obviously not in an age set where i would be eligible for the vaccine right now of pfizer has made different decisions how they are going to deploy that. they are going to be following the cdc recommendations. i think you might see the company vaccinate certain essential workers when they are eligible to be vaccinated.

particularly people who work on the manufacturing line of the vaccine. you want to make sure they are protected so you can continue to distribute these products but pfizer is going to follow the cdc recommendations. >> dr. gottlieb, thanks, as always, for joining us do you think in 2021 you will have more or less cnbc appearances than in 2020 >> i very much enjoy being on with you but i hope i am on a little less, especially talking about covid. >> this is the year scott gottlieb became the most important guest on cnbc. >> we all hope dr. gottlieb you will be on less as well. but we mean that in the nicest possible way always a pleasure to have you. hopefully the circumstances of next year are a little bit more welcoming for us all. >> thank you. >> thank you dr. gottlieb, happy new year. most companies have a ceo, a cfo, but what about a chief remote officer why companies are looking to fill that role, and what it means for the future of corporate america.

that's coming up now the third-most search ticker on nbc.com this year was the dow. not the s&p. we have still got the top two tickers left to reveal "closing bell" back in a couple of minutes

time for a cnbc news update with leslie picker hi, leslie. >> wilf, here's what's happening at this hour new york stay mayor deblasio setting a goal of vaccinating 1 million new yorkers in january. in the first two weeks the vaccine has been available just 88,000 people have been vaccinated today new york state reported nearly 17,000 new cases of covid-19, a record, and a 25% increase from yesterday's all time high. in west virginia, 42 people got an antibody treatment instead the coronavirus vaccine due to an error at the county health department. officials say there is no risk or harm and those affected will get the vaccine as soon as possible. look at this new aerial footage shows the extent of the damage from the massive landslide in norway yesterday. ten people remain missing. 1,000 residents have been evacuated.

wow. that's our cnbc news update for this hour. back over to you. >> up next on the show, the work from home trend hits the c suite. companies are in search of a chief remote officer leaving the future of corporate america and commercial real estate in question we will discuss that when "closing bell" comes right back. - [narrator] at southern new hampshire university, we're committed to making college more accessible by making it more affordable, that's why we're keeping our tuition the same through the year 2021. - i knew snhu was the place for me when i saw how affordable it was. i ran to my husband with my computer and i said, "look, we can do this." - [narrator] take advantage of some of the lowest online tuition rates in the nation. find your degree at snhu.edu.

labradoodles, cronuts, skorts. (it's a skirt... and shorts) the world loves a hybrid. so do businesses. so, today they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach lets them use watson ai to modernize without rebuilding, and bring all their partners and customers together in one place. that's why businesses from retail to banking are going with a smarter hybrid cloud using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm.

the pandemic leading to a

big shift in how people work this past past year. the latest survey results from work marketplace upwork shows that nine months into the pandemic, nearly 42% the american work force remains fully remote and the trend could be here to stay with more than 36 million americans expected to work remotely by 2025 an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels let's bring in the ceo of marketing and creative staffing firm aquint. thank you for joining us, john good afternoon to you. clearly, there has been a massive growth in this trend this past year does the pace of that growth at least slow down as we move into next year? >> no, i don't think the pace of the growth slows down. if anything, it accelerates. you know, trying to get workers back into the office is going to be like trying to unring a bell. it is going to be extremely

difficult. let me tell you why. first of all, workers really love working from home because they save time because they save costs in commuting, because they have better work/life balance, they really enjoy it. and companies are going to be a competitive disadvantage if they don't allow workers to continue working at home because companies really like this and knowledge-based workers and talent really call the shots nowadays so there is going a lot of pressure on companies to enable people to work from home second of all, future talent is going to be remote and let me explain why right now, the united states has many, many different labor markets. but with coronavirus and the advent of remote work, you are all of a sudden able to tap into a much larger pool of people and get a lot better talent. now, so when it comes the hiring a b player local low or an a

player remotely companies are going to go for the remote talent it has already helped a lot of companies. like the automobile companies. they could never get great talent in detroit and now they are getting great talent future hires are going to be better if they work remotely there is going to be loot of pressure for remote work one last final reason is cost. companies are saving a ton of money or conversely wasting a ton of money if they have office space that sits unused office and occupancy space could be 5 or 10% of people costs. if companies can save this money it goes straight to the bottom line there is going to be cost reasons and there is going to be talent and people reasons to keep remote going even after the vaccine has been distributed. >> i know you are speaking broadly john, here, but i have

to think it varies by industry as for who is going to be eager to get back in the office and who might let workers stay remote there has to be costs for certain industries like the banks i think of for not having that culture of ideas and in-personno, it's definitely varied by industry it's almost by company culture look, after the vaccine has been distributed, there's going to be three types of companies, companies that try to go back to the old way, and let's say a third of companies do that companies that embrace the future and a lot of technical companies do it, but even a lot of old world companies are doing it such as ford and national insurance. but then there's a lot of companies in the middle sort of a hybrid, but at the end of the day, you're going to see a -- that's 50% of businesses, though, doing new ways, and there's going to be intense pressure to keep it that way so right now you're just seeing a lot -- even in banks you're

seeing a company like morgan stanley might have 90% of their employees working from home right now. there's going to be a lot of pressure to keep it that way i think going back to the old world is not going to happen. >> quite a prediction, thank you for joining us come back in the new year and tell us how it's going. >> happy new year. new year new laws, when the ball drops at midnight, a slew of new laws will take effect that will affect the market and your wallet. we'll have details straight ahead. take a look at the faang stocks, apple the top performer, alphabet only up 30% it's been a good year for technology maybe part of the reason apple is the second most searched ticker on cnbc.com the top ticker, it was notoo zm. it was not moderna there's your hint, we'll tell you what it is next on "closing bell."

tonight a covid new year's eve, the pandemic's

when the ball drops at midnight, a slew of new laws will take effect across the country. many of them could impact your money. eric, what do we need to know? >> there's a lot going on, a lot of new rules start with the cap on earnings subject to social security tax that goes up almost to $143,000, those already on social

security, they're going to get a 1.3% cost of living increase, and if you're looking to start collecting money, you're going to have to wait longer to reach full retirement age. tomorrow that age now rises to 66 years and ten months. virginia and georgia are among several states helping people deal with unexpected medical bills requiring insurance companies in many cases not to charge more money for out of network care surprise medical billing legislation is also in the covid relief package new family medical leave laws in massachusetts and new york allow 12 weeks paid time off while connecticut starts collecting a new payroll tax for a program kicking in in 2022, and california is addressing corporate diversity by requiring companies based there to have at least one gender or racially diverse board director that number goes up again in 2022 >> all right, thanks so much for that happy new year to you. up next, the most searched ticker on cnbc.com this past

year, plus, what we're watching for in 2021. and a new year's resolution from each of mike, sarah and i. we're back in a couple of minutes.

see yourself. welcome back to the mirror. and know you're not alone because this. come on jessie one more. is the reflection of an unstoppable community in the mirror.

and the big reveal, the top ticker on cnbc.com this year, tesla obviously. the stock finished up more than 740%, and it's had a story i think, every single day of 2020. >> interesting to see boeing on that list, though, as well, not just all the tech names and the dow. final thoughts, time for our new year's resolutions mine's not a resolution but an action which is just to live life to the full i think after this challenging year, and that includes as much travel as i can possibly do including trying to get home for the first time in a whole year without going in my country. and when i do get there, hopefully no mention of the word brexit with it behind us that's mine. what are you going for, mike >> i just need to raise my dad joke game. as of a couple of weeks ago, i am the dad of two teenage daughters. they start the eye rolls before i even finish saying what i'm saying. >> we all do, mike. >> i know. >> my resolution has to do with

new york city because i just returned back after being away for a while. there's been a lot of dim and gloom. my resolution is to support the city however we can in the new year restaurants, small businesses and retail charities, so much of it because a lot of people are moving out and companies are rethinking it. my other resolution is to do the show next year with you guys in person. >> yep. >> would be the the first time since march. it's been a while. it would be great to be back together, and with that, that's it for us on "closing bell," happy new year, everyone here's to a healthy and happy one, "fast money" begins now >> i'm melissa lee and this is "fast money. happy new year's eve, everybody. trader lineup for the final show of the year, brian kelly, mike cohen, james mcdonald. it may be new year's eve, but times square looks a lot different from what we're used to we'll talk to the ceo of one restaurant group that used to be at the center of the action about how he's had to reset his plans and his outlook for the industry and a look at a couple