it is 5:00 a.m it's cnbc. here's your top five at 5:00 trading in 2021 coming in, well, like last year went out. on the move higher futures up big stocks continue to catch a bid, but nothing can top bitcoin's bid surging again breaking through 34,000 before pulling back in a big way. it's down a couple thousand right now. trump urging georgia's top election official to overturn the state's presidential results. that call coming just two days

before key senate runoffs in the states. the u.s. looking to ramp-up the rollout of the covid vaccines, while the uk is giving out the astrazeneca vaccine for the first time today. and tesla shares they are soaring right now and delivering a record-breaking number of cars turn the key on. trading on 2021. it is monday, january 4th, and this is "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc. ♪ i'm back back in the new york new ♪ i'm back, back in the new york, ooh ♪ certainly back in the mood to see you this morning. good afternoon or good evening and welcome from wherever in the world you may be watching. i am brian sullivan. good to be back with you and by the way, happy new year. how it looks on the first trading day of 2021. kind of looks like 2020, from a

stock perspective, that's a good way. well into the green, futures dow up 179 points now. nasdaq up higher on a percentage basis. new year, but same momentum. of course, all the major indexes up over the last month of course, one question is whether small caps can remain red hot. certainly have been. now, we have got to check bitcoin and the cryptos. could have led with them a wild 24 hours for bitcoin and others bitcoin is down big right now, off more than $2,500 per coin, but briefly overnight on some exchanges it went above $34 now. was up literally a couple thousand points now down $2,500 all in the last 24 to 36 hours litecoin and others like ethereum down as well. more on the cryptos later on in the show and bitcoin is the subject of your rbi. you want to hear this one at the end of the show. meantime, now to your monday

check list we'll pick out the big three events of the week of course, the biggest one for the nation is going to be the georgia senate race, but we focus on the markets purely for them, here's what we are looking at today you get the monthly construction numbers. normally, why would we care about that well, because the rebound and the numbers we get today could show that spending on construction rose above the 1.44 trillion record that we hit last february could be some very big numbers there. now, this week, and we're not exactly sure when, we're going to get fourth quarter results from carnival. thursday could be the day trying to confirm it but we can't -- we don't care about the results we care about the guidance what a carnival going to say about the consumer, when they'll be back on the oceans and some of their view in the consumer, and this topped off on friday. you got the december jobs number as well. some of the monthly earnings figures as well.

so construction, carnival, jobs, your big three events this week. all right. outside of the markets and making headlines this morning, the uk becoming the first nation to roll out the covid vaccine developed by astrazeneca and the university of oxford the first pen was inoculated a couple hours ago now, this is also a two-dose vaccine. but unlike the other options approved for emergency use, it can be transported and stored at normal refrigerated temperatures for at least six months. in other words, it's a lot easier to move and distribute. now, meantime here in the united states, officials are trying to speed up the rollout of our vaccines yesterday "operation warp speed" chief moncef slaoui said one option on the table is giving two half doses of the moderna vaccine. he said the group is in discussions with moderna and the fda about it, adding, the final decision rests with the fda. that would, in a sense, double

the capacity and reduce, of course, the efficacy, but double the amount of vaccine that would be available in the short term and in corporate news on this monday, tesla reporting it delivered 180,570 thousa,000 ca. all right. back now to the markets and your money and what is being called "the everything" rally from stocks to emerging markets, to commodities bitcoin, real estate, other hard assets, investors have been piling their money into, well, just about everything since the pandemic lows last march

global stocks measured by the msci all-world xetf, a mouthful, up 62% and this is only the third time going back 50 years that all of those investments climbed so much in such a short time. the dow jones market data. would have been a good rbi talk more about this with victoria green, founding partner add gsquared happy morning. early, early morning where you are. thanks for joining us. is the number one question from your clients, victoria, how much longer can this rally roll on and if not what is it? >> yeah. people are certainly, almost two sides to that story. one camp that says it's about to fall apart and the other, the fomo here missing out, gosh, i have to get heavier into stocks. quite frankly i think this rally

has legs i think it continues to go forward. i think the vaccine coming i know the rollout's a little slow a big week this week with georgia and then the confirmation, but at the same point, you know, there's a lot more upside, i think in stocks than in bonds. look around at the landscape and with the markets getting better, most likely, and the vaccine getting rolled out there's a good story behind stocks even if stretched on valuations. valuations aren't stretched equally across the market. tech valuations, some value stocks -- >> i don't want to start off the new year, victoria, by asking you to dip into the world of politics plenty other channels that do that, but from a market's perspective, people say that it does matter. how closely are you watching that georgia vote tomorrow >> certainly very closely both georgia and then what happened wednesday though i think wednesday will be messy but be just fine georgia, quite frankly, we think probably one of two seats, and a relief rally with that

obviously, if the democrats do win both seats that could actually have a sell-off happen, because then we might have more policies and other things the market isn't counting in right now. you look at this and say georgia matters a lot. but investments in the baseline, on what is probable not possible is that republicans will hang on to at least one of the two seats. polling is really tight. we did see polling fall apart a little bit in november turnout's high weather's supposed it be good across georgia we'll see what voters turn out and say, but certainly either one could pop the market or bring it back down to earth. >> yeah. and i know that you and i have talked about it, because you're there in texas, some of the oil stocks i know that you like chevron you have, still do obviously, fossil fuel companies could be direct either likely not beneficiaries but certainly impacted by a democratic sweep, or perhaps any big climate

change legislation that may come out of the biden administration, but all that said, you are still a believer in chevron. why? >> absolutely. so it's one of the best integrated oils out there. they actually, have haums a 6% dividend yield right now they're a great company, and, yeah, fossil fuels is slowly pivoting more towards solar and renewables but that's a slow pivot. turning on the aircraft barrier there. not happening overnight and i believe they'll pick up market share when you see the integrated european oil step back and pivot towards pps and shells, more globally market share for chevron. still upside in oil and gas. we think that industry is critically important, still, to this country with oil around 45 to 50, well within chevron's break even. a great balance sheet, strong cash flow. very capital disciplined there's a lot to like about

chevron going into next year and conservative valued. look around the market now and say, what has upside i think oil and gas is a great recovery story. >> yeah. starting to hear more deep value players say, listen, it's ugly we may not have to like it it's not esg from a value perspective might be there you like crowdstrike get to that maybe next time. victoria greene, thank you see you soon take care. >> happy new year, brian. happy new year as well getting started on a very busy monday up next speaking of oil, opec meeting virtually in vienna. n'ght be market-moving if they dot get their act together dow futures up 178 talk more about georgia. a lot to do. we're back, right after this. ♪ you can go your own way

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welcome back it's monday morning and happy new year by the way. a check on oil prices which ended the year on the rise energy and energy stocks are hot in the month of december oil up about 1% today. and meeting in vienna, start waf will be now monthly meeting at least for a while. in part because of covid and lockdowns, global oil demand estimates being adjusted almost daily. opec will meet virtually more to be more nextable now today the group considers raising output by 500,000 barrel

per day, but most market watchers and those i speak with believe opec will keep output levels where they are. daily cut 7.7 million barrels from the pre-pandemic levels as it may be risky given the shakiness of global demand of course, it is opec. you never know more insight now with managing director at mortexa. happy new year, my friend. wish we are in vienna together, sure we'll get back there, virtually, anyway. what do you believe opec and its crew will come to a conclusion of today >> hey, good morning, brian, and happy new year to you. yeah, you know, they're facing a really difficult balancing act between opec and opec-plus doing a good job managing that balance. prit stability and inventory stability as well, that we

track. balance is tenuous and hangs on timing of recovery and transportation and transportation fuel demand it's really been badly curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic. so opec itself thinks demand will increase by about 6 million barrels per day in 2021 versus last year, but remember, they're still holding off in the market 7.2 million barrels per day and more to come eventually from iran, too. this is a balancing act. to the projections for what they'll decide today, right, the conservative play would probably be to not add more oil supply right now. pending more signs of that demand recovery. >> yeah. i think it's going to be hopefully a relatively drama-free meeting, is seems over the weekend pushing the group towards that end and the wild card for opec lately has been iraq the country's in shambles. the government effectively not

quite dissolved getting there. currency devalued massively, but you've got some great data and a cool graphic, actually, a be libya coming in to play as another big wild card. is it accurate that california may be buying crude oil from libya? >> our data indicates that california's the destination of at least one tanker en route right now. look at it from the big picture. >> wow. >> libya's return marketplace at this time is posing a pretty big challenge. actually looking strong now at about 1.2 million barrels per day. and that's the most since april of 2019 for those guys it poses a competitive challenge for them, for, let's say, in china. selling oil into china poses competition for some theed mideast gulf suppliers into europe, competition for opec members like algeria and

nigeria. one that's really important is the united states, because we developed quite the toehold in the european export market over recent months and recent quarters, but now that new supply of white, sweet crude that competes with the u.s. is pushing out some of those opportunities for the united states exporters in europe the graphic that we saw from our data is interesting. tracking a cargo of libyan competing against europe, their backyard, but making their way around, atlantic, around south america towards california the key question here is -- >> i mean -- >> go ahead. >> just seems, seemed bizarre could have even be profitable enough to charter that ship that long at oil prices where they are. speaking of it, before i let you go, clay, you track inventories, an idea where prices may be? probably read my predictions's not promoting, up online one, oil could end the year

stronger, not by much, maybe $55 a barrel and a bunch of factors. am i wrong if i am, lay it out. >> you're not wrong. could see prices hover for a while. seen inventories onshore stable. in the united states commercial crude inventory is around 500 million barrels on hand for the last several months and seeing floating storage the oil we trap on tankers offshore draining. so you are seeing signs of backwardation returning to the crude oil term structure, and that could be conducive to the sideways trade, a little higher than 50 starting into the new year. >> claa chinese business tycoon poisoned to death before in the world a ibalaba founder who hasn't been seen in months get both of these big stories next.

welcome back and good morning now to a headline stright out of reenplay if ita chinese video game developer billionaire allegedly carried out by one of his colleagues joining us from beijing, more on this story eunice >> reporter: thanks so much, brian. the death took place on christmas day, but as you can imagine, people are still talking about this story, even today. the billionaire is a 39-year-old man named lyn chi. founder of a gaming company probably best known overseas for producing an online strategy game called "game of thrones: winter is coming." founder, lyn, had also big plans

to work with netflix and creators of "game of thrones" to adapt to tv a series, a sci-fi novel called "three-body problem. his hope was believed to turn the novel and the trilogy, very, very popular here, into kind of, almost like a chinese version of "star wars" with lots of games and tv series, as well as films. that could have been one of the disputes that he supposedly had with one of his colleagues shanghai police say they have mutt in custody a man named mr. shoo, and people close to lyn say it is shoo yau, former ceo of the film division all the gossip is that the two were having disputes over pay and over possible film production based on this novel so because of that, and, again, brian, a lot of this is speculation exactly how he was

poisoned still a lot of questions state media has said it was through aged prt and a theory he was poisoned, the poison was put into his medication and a type of neurotoxin that's usually detected in puffer fish. >> bizarre story there, and tragic for his family. now, on a different note, a bigger name, but one that i guess we're not really sure of right now is jack ma there are reports out he may have "disappeared. i say quote, because he did not appear on his public talent show he has a tv show called "africa's business heroes" replaced by a different alibaba official apparently not seen in at least two months and growing speculation that basically, where in the world is jack ma? >> yeah. that speculation has been around since october.

right after he had a very big speech where he was highly critical and openly critical of chinese regulators when it came to the, not only to ant also to fintech generally. since then he has gone very low profile, but as to whether -- there's speculation he might have gone missing, but here in china people have talked more about how he's being pretty quiet and people close to some executives say he's been traveling back and forth to beijing for the past couple of months, that he is still in town one other -- one other expectation here is that, that he -- that the government wouldn't necessarily want to go after jack ma himself, and that maybe they would try to rein in the company, ant first, then alibaba instead. the reason for that authorities here are in a situation where they want to make sure that they encourage or at least are seen as encouraging entrepreneurship

at the same time keeping them under wraps. >> uh-huh. yeah let's hope jack ma resurfaces soon there very interesting story growing on ma. thank you very much, live from beijing. all right. coming up, president trump urging, prodding, pleading with georgia's top official to overturn preside benntid the victory in the state in a bizarre phone call all on tape we will head to washington, next. save hundreds on your wireless bill

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jux welcome back a developing scandal now rocking washington and the nation. audio of president trump's pressuring georgia's secretary of state to try to overturn the election results there all of this coming out of tomorrow's special senate race in georgia, and just days before the electoral college results are set to be certified. let's talk about all of this, eamon javers joining us with the latest big news, aeamon. did you listen to the transcript interesting often bizarre and certainly high-pressure phone call from the president over the weekend. >> yeah, brian, that's right an extraordinary development we've never seen anything quite like this in american histories. the president of the united states calling local officials in georgia pressuring them to overturn a valid democratic election that went for his opponent those state officials in georgia

holding the line, telling the president he simply had his facts wrong, and there is no path to victory. here's a snippet of the phone call, audio first obtained by the "washington post," now also obtained by nbc news take a listen. >> so, look, all i want to do is this i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state, and flipping the state is a great testament to our country. >> so the president insisting beyond all evidence that he won this state, when, in fact, he lost the state of georgia. he lost the presidential election and joe biden will be sworn in as the president of the united states on january 20th. the election results, brian have been certified the electoral college has voted. this election is over and yet the president of the united states continues to try to find

some way to pressure officials to reverse the election, and keep him in power for another four years unclear where all of this goes now. this is a chaotic start now to an important week in washington, d.c., and in american democracy. the first thing we've got today. we've got the president and the former vice president, the president-elect, both campaigning in georgia for their slate of georgia senate candidates remember, two georgia senate seats are on the ballot this week in that special runoff election that means control of the united states senate hangs in the balance on tuesday, and then on wednesday we've got this extraordinary moment now where the u.s. congress will meet to certify the election results, and a number of united states senators have said they will object to the election results as they have been certified, as they have been called by the electoral college. that's expected to go nowhere, but it adds an element of drama

and resistance by some republicans to the idea that this election was fair and free, and should proceed on the normal course so the republicans don't have the votes here to stop biden being sworn in, but there's going to be a dramatic moment of resistance they're going to metaphorically lay their bodies across the tracks to try to prevent that from happening. fascinating note tom cotton, conservative trump ally in the senate said yesterday he is not going to back this effort to object to the election results he said the founding fathers set up a plan and a path for elections and we should follow it brian, back to you. >> i read senator cotton's statement. a big trump supporter, of course, said basically, i'll summarize, he did not like the results. may not have agreed with the results, but he will support the results and the way the founding fathers set up the electoral college. this might be a more symbolic move on wednesday. eamon, back to the phone call,

there is chatter out there, articles that in some way the call may have violated either state and/or federal election law. is there any talk out there that there may be a move against trump on this? >> well, democratic officials in georgia certainly say that there will be and they're calling for an investigation you can imagine that the president has now exposed himself to additional legal difficulty after the election. you know, the normal course of action here would be for congress to move forward with an impeachment inquiry if they felt there was something potentially crim na or impeachable in this and there are valid arguments there are. the timing of it, given the president only has a few days left in his term in office, means there's just no way congress will be able to move forward with an impeachment or even impeachment and removal if it would get down the line to that point you know, at this juncture

so the question is, are there legal headaches for the president after he leaves office and then at that point he'll have fewer of the protections of a sitting president of the united states, and i think the president's opened himself up to a real can of worms here and there could be long-lasting consequences to this there are long-lasts consequences for democracy when you get a losing side that simply does not accept the result and trying to find any way to overturn those results after the voters have spoken, brian. >> yeah. let's just hope and sort of pray this is a one-off, because the pandemic for years and elections to come. eamon javers, thank you, buddy see you all day here on cnbc. joining me from the american enterprise institute and cnbc contributor. jimmy, not sure where to begin, to be honest with you, but i guess i'll ask this, which is, obviously the senate race is hugely important to the gop. do you think this trump phone call will damage their chances

of keeping one or both seats in georgia? >> those are pretty close races. the polls have really tightened. the betting markets have really tightened, and i think it the theory that this would be bad for republicans as once again the president saying, there's something wrong with the voting in georgia that it is not a fair vote. and if you want to make the leap, people will think about that you have some of the president's more extreme supporters saying don't vote reject the entire process. i doubt this is a positive for republicans who are looking to be a very close -- eamon just said, enormously important election for 2021. >> yeah. in fact, i just looked right now, jimmy yesterday, overnight, jon ossoff is now above david perdue on the predicted betting market perdue had a sizable lead -- again, talking about predicted markets. take it for what its worth may not matter at all, but right

now we are searing the democrat getting a bit above david perdue if we get a democratic sweep, a lot of implications. taxes, capital gains, section 230. infrastructure but you've also got the counter failing weight of joe manchin, effectively republican in some kays, susan collins. it democrats win both, how much do you think will really happen in congress? >> right well, the republicans, biggest economic revent of next year already happened that's the stimulus. democratics win, it's not like what people are talking about before the election, that democrats were going to have such, such a majority that we were going to get new deals, massive tax hikes. that's not going to happen with a narrow majority. manchin, the arizona senators who come from a very close state. i think in that scenario, i

think you still get tax hikes. you don't get the full biden tax hike plan. you probably get higher income tax rates. a bump-up of the corporate rate. trump tax cuts don't get extended i think that's -- i mean, that's significant. not what some democrats were dreaming about more spending not the full new green deal spending but a significant difference verse a split government >> yeah. certainly will be there. and i think jon ossoff obviously, maybe -- the sea change i think democrats have been looking for, but at the same time, you've got the house, which is not getting a lot of attention. let's not forget the house has the narrowest margin the democrats thought they would gain seats they lost seats, and now you've got pelosi, renamed speaker of the house last night, having to deal with the smallest margin in the house i believe, or exactly in 100 years

so should investors, should we all expect huge changes regardless of what happens in georgia tomorrow or do you think this will be a rather centrist next couple of years? >> yeah. we often forget about the house. it's great you mention this. this is not seeming like the environment that you would expect, you know, for just, you know -- sort of radical change i think a lot of democrats were dreaming about, they thought huge gains in the house, they were going to have, you know a very sizable senate majority so i think you get sort of the original biden-light agenda, which isn't insignificant. tax increases or not tax increases. a difference between getting a second stimulus, maybe something close to the trillion dollar infrastructure plan and not getting anything like that a lot more spending. somewhat higher taxes. markets were looking for something perhaps even more

significant, and seem to think that was just fine they seem to like $900 billion i think this is -- i think there might be some up sides focusing on the past a lot more of potential stimulus versus the tax hikes. so i think -- i think it sort of status quo to maybe something on the plus side. >> yeah. and let's not forget, senator manchin has saids even if it's 50/50, he will not vote on the democratic side for some of these huge changes like packing the corporate debt, whatever it might be an interesting 72 hours. happy new year, my friend. take care. >> to you, too. all right. coming up, folks, bitcoin marking two big milestones in just the last 24 hours it was up over 34,000, and now it's down more than 4,000. what's going on? we'll talk cryptos, next.

all right, sir welcome back time now for today's rbi happy birthday bitcoin you turned 12 years old on sunday you really are starting to grow up fast. you've gone from 10,000 to 33,500 in just an 90 days, but that's nothing invest pedia notes the first real trade of bitcoin valued you at about 8 cents a decade ago. that's about a cool 43 million

percent gain in a little over two years. repeat that. 42 million%. sounds ridiculous, put it another way. some early adopter bought $1 worth of bitcoin valued at a dime for fun or whatever now sitting on ten coins right now at $1 deal it's worth $335,000. remember the story that poor guy in england a couple years ago accidentally threw away an old laptop that stored 7,500 bitcoin on it? not to pile on, but that guy the stash would be worth about $250 million today. maybe it is time to break out the bulldozers and happy 12th birthday, bitcoin. you give us incredible stories over the years, but do us a favor and skip all of that teenage angst. will ya? random, but interesting. and bitcoin, wild moves wean seen joining us, editor on coin desk

exchange and lawrence, great to see you, my friend what a time to have you on because when i wrote that yesterday, bitcoin was soaring now bitcoin's down $4,000. maybe i should avoid bitcoin stories because they simply move too quickly but still a heck of a run. what's with all the volatility in the last 24 hours >> you know, brian, stilling see institutional interest in bitcoin. officially we saw it going in, buying bitcoin, and you could tell that because we saw about 35,000 bitcoin leave coin base alone which is one of the larger retailer exchanges when sizes of that amount leave an exchange, particularly that exchange that means it's going over to an over-the-counter, which means buyers somebody came in and bought a significant amount somebody with an institutional size amount.

subsequently, some institutional selling in the over the count er market bitcoin is a valuable asset class still. nonetheless, you know, there is increased institutional interest in it. institutions these days, you know, five years ago, four years ago -- three years ago even. you talk about institutional interest, you meant mom and pop shops, now looking at massmooc tu mutuals interested in it bla blackrock, talking up bitcoin. a different environment than a few months ago even. >> speaking in very broad terms. dangerous, lawrence when it comes to talking any crypto related. agency you know -- hey, it's tv. they have tended to trade together to a point. bring up the graphic just up bitcoin is now down 10%. ethereum, might be flat, slightly higher. i know goldman likes ethereum.

>> correct. >> are they starting to be their own thing, trade independently or moving with the overall crypto tide? >> you know, over the weekend, baaing to that, there was some rotation into so-called alt coins, if you look at the 20 assets we track in the coin desk 20 almost all of them are up, except for bitcoin one other one. so overall the alts are up particularly if there's going to be an alt that's up right now it would probably be ether, because it's the second largest by market cap also it has its own narrative separate from bitcoin. it's used as the underlying network for a lot of defi. decentralized finance, new in crypto finance growing over the past few months.

a lot of interest is now, people turning this, what's the next hot move so, of course, some people looking to ethereum and rebalancing their portfolio to do that. >> so many by the way, coins no way to get into all of them some trading for pennies some obviously tens of you thats of dollars. >> yeah. >> right now, lawrence, what would be the most interesting story line around bitcoin that you are following? so, again, it's the institutional interest still you know and, of course, there is the idea that over the long term we're going to start to see more interest just because from a portfolio management point of view, correlations to s&p 500. correlations to gold when you look at the 90-decor lation with gold, 2.5. the correlation coefficient. s&p 500, 6.22. a high volatility asset, you know, at the money volatility

implied volatility in the options market for bitcoin right now is about 100%. nonetheless, you had high returns. so when you have high returns, high -- but despite high volatilities and low correlations, for portfolio manager, look at that and go, okay, well, i need to rebalance my portfolio in a way that makes sense. you might see more people just doing it from that perspective, adding crypto to their port foll folios because of other asset classes. >> a pleasure to get you on. good to see you again on coin desk lawrence, a lot of story lines appreciate you getting up early. thanks very much talk to you soon. >> thank you happy new year. >> yeah, happy new year, lawrence wow. bitcoin down 4,000 coin base exchange keeping a close on that today. also keeping an eye on home prices, because they are soaring. not exactly where you might expect we'll bring you surprising

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welcome back are you one of the millions thinking about buying a new home you might want to hold on to your wallets prices skyrocketing, but not where you might expect the pandemic caused big demand for big homes in smaller cities. prices are following suit. joining us now with details. where are the new, hottest markets in america >> one word, brian the middle look, home prices nationally rose a remarkable 8.4% in october annually on the

s&p/case-shiller index up from a 7% gain just the month before and the largest one-month move in over a decade prices are gaining everywhere, there is a significant shift in where they're gaining most for decades, prices surged on the coasts, in major markets like san francisco, l.a., seattle, boston, new york and miami. they are still going up there, but it is the middle that is the new star cities like indianapolis, kansas city, boise, austin, and all of the three biggest cities in ohio memvil memville, knoxville, tennessee, very strong. all historically more affordable markets, and markets that generally have more inventory of homes for sale you don't see the crazy spikes in prices. that makes the suddenly strong price growth in the middle of the country that much more striking now, much of it likely to do with the pandemic and the ability to work from anywhere now. people are heading to less expensive markets where they can get more space and land for their money, but that's now making those markets less

affordable, of course. in fact, end of 2020, the median price of homes in just over half the counties in the u.s., 55%, were considered less affordable to the average wage earner than they had been historically that's according to adam data solutions. that's a significantly larger share than the same time the year before, of course, pre-pandemic brian? >> but i guess mortgage rates have been low. i'm sure you look at them all the tile is there any indication they'll move significantly higher in the next couple of months? >> no indication move significantly higher we expect them to say pretty low this year, but these higher prices, they're wiping out the kind of gains you're getting from the mortgage rates, because actually those very low mortgage rates seen over the past six, eight months fueling these prices and give buyers more purchasing power, prices go go up and prices up so much more the benefit from low mortgage

rates being wiped out now, hurting sales soon already seen it over the last three months, pending home sales's that signed contract lower every month for the past three months could be a lot slower spring this year than we might have expected, because of these high prices. >> cleveland is the new cost cove there's your headline. thank you very much for joining us the middle, red hot. about time thank you. joining us now wells fargo chief commit jay brisen just out with their 2021 outlook and 2020 year-end recap just horde that piece. you had a fascinating graphic. i read the piece yesterday, where you showed rents in major areas, and an index against each other and san francisco just falling off a cliff. that's that blue line we are showing right now. what do you make of this massive real estate trend and swing? how's it going to impact the

overall economic outlook >> well, brian, i mean, i think what's going on is kind of what was just highlighted there that people are moving away from some of those west coast and east coast sort of cities. they're moving more into the middle and as that happens, it's causing rents to come down in those cities now, is that going to have a big, major macro economic impact i don't think so i think it's more of a micro sort of thing. i wouldn't read into this. like there's a housing bubble going on in the united states right now. i mean, we're not back to where we were back in 2005, there's not over-building or anything like that. shouldn't have any major macro impact, but could have some impact in some of those particular cities. >> yeah. we get the construction numbers out today. normally i would pay them zero attention, put them on our big three events of the week, though, because we could have bigger record high numbers over 1.4 trillion as everybody's trying to build out homes to meet not just pandemic demand

but demographics are destiny the first millennial turns 40 years old this year. there's 85 million of them how big is the demographic head or tailwind, i should say, on many parts of this economy as well >> yeah. that's right we do look for housing to have another good year in 2021, because as you point out the millennials are getting into their child-bearing years right now and it's great to have a two bedroom flat in midtown manhattan when you're single but now that you're having children, starting to see that those people are starting to move out to the suburbs right now and we think that -- with mortgage rates remaining relatively low this year that that will be, that will fuel another, you know, another strong year for housing. >> so what's the most important thing in the next couple of days or weeks or months that you and your team are going to be focused on squarely to give us

some kind of a crystal ball as to where we're headed? >> the pandemic, the pandemic, the pandemic i mean, that's what it boils down to right now. looks like we're going to get off to 2021, you know, macro basis on a relatively weak note. we lost momentum over the last two months, and with some restrictions here. so really depends on what happens with the pandemic and, you know, in the next weeks or moss as the vaccine rolls out, that's good news. leads to some reopenings, or more reopening later this year, but, you know, here in the near term it's really going to depend on the evolution of what's happening here with the pandemic it all boils down i think to that. >> well said, and the vaccine. rollouts hopefully will continue to ramp up jay brisen appreciate you coming on best to you and yours. happy new year. >> thanks. that does it for us here on the first "worldwide exchange" exchange of 2021 leave you with dow futures up,

bitcoin down a couple thousand bucks. see you tomorrow xwk x "squawk" and the gang picking up the coverage in their new year see you tomorrow. save hundreds on your wireless bill without even leaving your house. just keep your phone and switch to xfinity mobile. you can get it by ordering a free sim card online. once you activate, you'll only have to pay for the data you need starting at just $15 a month. there are no term contracts, no activation fees, and no credit check on the first two lines. get a $50 prepaid card when you switch. nationwide 5g is now included. switch and save hundreds. xfinity mobile.

good morning stocks looking to start the new year in the green. no small feat. right? futures pointing to a higher open but bitcoin plunging after reaching a new high over the weekend of 34,000 and change president trump dialing up the pressure on a phone call with georgia secretary of state. take you live to washington for the fallout. and the u.s. failing to reach its vaccination goal so far. now officials are considering administering a half dose to speed up the rollout saying the responses --

it's monday, january 4th and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross and we start this morning with u.s. equity futures last year, last trading session of the year, you actually saw the dow and s&p move to record closes while they are no