we're now half an hour before the market opens quick check on where things stand. dow right now looks like it would open down about 93 points. nasdaq about 65 points, down s&p around 15 points that's been a bit of a turn around where things stood, even when the show began. make sure you join us tomorrow there is going to be a lot to talk about, guys "squawk on the street" begins right now. good tuesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with david faber, jim cramer. futures have slid into the red as andrew said after the worst opening day of the year for the dow in several years watching the georgia senate runoff, of course, uk lockdowns, and a slew of analyst moves on names like uber, coke, micron, airbnb and more. road map begins with wall

street's rocky start to 2021 the dow and the s&p suffering their first decline to start a year since 2016. >> plus, the nyse's about face, saying it will no longer delist three chinese telecom giants and there is a leadership transition at the top of qualcomm steve mollenkopf retiring carl >> guys, it is good to be back together as a team once again. been a week or two jim, i know you said the number of analyst moves this morning is pretty remarkable. question is, is that what is going to move the narrative today or more macro, things like georgia? >> i think the tenor of what "squawk box" had, people who talk about georgia, think there could be an upset. i do think that there is a lack

of acknowledged by many people who come on who are macro who do not understand that the micro, the individual stocks that are driven by research, it is almost all positive and we are about to go into earnings season. so we have a political risk. we have a vaccine risk, but we have an earnings reward and, david, when i look at what is going on, with earnings, and what analysts are doing, it is raise, raise, raise. as the market comes down, maybe retest a little yesterday, i think it is going to bring in buyers and that could change the tenor. >> well, multiples are at levels we have not seen in a long time. your point being that we're going to follow through here, that those who sent these stocks up to these levels are going to be rewarded as a result of earnings being higher than anticipated, jim >> yes both david kostin who talks about being too low right now on earnings estimates around the street, who believes there will

be greater price to earnings multiple and we know some people think that's a greater theory, talking about the party, not being disingenuous, a lot of people are chasing momentum and that tends to work we can all sit back and say, you know what, that just is wrong. that isn't what matters. doesn't matter the market that it is wrong, what matters is a lot of money on the sideline waiting to come in and will come in and that's what i'm looking for. >> jim, what is a good example of that in terms of the analyst calls today? we have a double up grade of micron at citi they say it is expensive in their words, it is time to go long the kron. is that what you're talking about? >> precisely, carl someone caught a lot of these cycles, and i hate this call why i do hate the call thanks for nothing, the stock was at 46 at the end of october.

but analyst is kind enough to say, i've been late, but once you get d-rams going and that's a major part of micron, once you get flash going, there is no stopping micron and holy cow, they report thursday night do you want to not be on the micron train i think all the world is going to be chiming in, buy micron buy micron it is that simple, carl. it really is >> yeah. i tell you, jim, i -- there is the upgrades and the downgrades, the price target increases are really too numerous, we're not getting through all of them today. it is everything from viacom to disney to chipotle to pins your point is a good one, though what happens if we get some of these georgia returns and as goldman says, the democrats have more of a tossup potential

versus the less than 20% potential of taking both seed s that we saw after election day >> i think it is possible people say, wow, we may have government as opposed to gridlock gridlock better than true government there might be some people who say you got to sell. you got to take profits and you mentioned the uber call earlier today. deutsche bank going to street high is that impacted is it impacted by what happens in georgia for the growth analyst, the answer is absolutely not the georgia election, what an opportunity. and, you know, these people are not focused on politics. they're focused on individual stock picking. i think we have to reorient ourselves in 2021. you know this, when you talked about that great qualcomm break this morning, you know that people are now talking about individual stocks, that's different. they're not talking about wait, growth stocks. the analysts who talk about growth stocks, they're missing the point of what happened last year

they're missing the point about 2021, which is individual stocks, we got to stop thinking about etfs and giant sectors it is not playing out. we know some of that is the merry men, the merry men don't care >> the merry men as you termed them now, i like that, of course, a play on robinhood and the new 10 million accounts, really stunning, that were added last year, guys, really what is a cohort that stuck with this market and to jim's point has been picking stocks as opposed to just investing more broadly, though that's been going on as well guys, when it comes to individual companies, wanted to come back to the news that we mentioned at the top of the hour steve mollenkopf departing as the ceo of qualcomm in june of next year to be replaced by the company's current president, christiano amman, there for about 23 years mollenkopf, 26 years both men engineers what is surprising is i talked to mollenkopf, we will later on

in the program, through so many difficulties, it really is unbelievable what that guy has dealt with i said that, whether it was the antitrust challenges around the globe, south korea, dealing with issues in china early in his tenure, the fight with apple, oh, man, that went on for years, finally got resolved the ftc case which went against them initially, and then which they won resoundingly in the appeals court, and solidifying their case for their business model, being competitive, broadcom making a hostile bid, nxp not happening because of the chinese antitrust regulator. it goes on and on. he gets to the promised land, to a year where the stock goes up, enormously, and it is about 5g and their future and he says that's it, i'm done. >> he's john elway not that john elway in the news now. look, here's what he's going to say to you or should say to you

we both like him i'm going to disney world! this guy has -- he's gotten there, david that is game after game after game, playoff loss, playoff loss, playoff win, he's done and cristiano, he's always told you, talk to cristiano, brazilian, fantastic i got a lot of brazilian relatives, trying to find a bunch of cramers down there. who goes to me, cristiano, playing the virtual 5g, it is time for mollenkopf it declare victory at the top of his game look at that stock that's mollenkopf's chart. my congratulations to steve, a quiet mellow man who took on everyone and won. >> and most importantly through that all, carl, his supporters will say he also invested more in the business. spent -- increased spend, another billion there and that's what they're reaping the benefits of at qualcomm,

engineering culture there. still shocking to hear 52-year-olds stepping down and, by the way, again, we'll see, remember donahoe did that, he left ebay for a while, then showed up at service now and now he's ceo of miknike now the people i'm speaking to, he's ready to go fishing or go take a long walk, a lot of long walks, i don't know. but, i mean, carl, you're not even that much younger than him. this is young. >> i'm right behind, yeah. that's something and, david, it sort of brings to mind the other personnel changes that we're seeing today. monica lozano will join the board of apple and gary cohn tweeting he'll join ibm as vice chair, jim. >> yeah, look, this is -- this is shocking to people for gary cohn he has a spac he's working on. i know he's not moving away from that $830 million spac, which he's -- i know david knows cliff

robins very well this is a really interesting move why? ibm is becoming a different culture. they need help in changing that culture because they're spinning off this dramatic spin-off of the managed service business, which is much slower, going to hybrid cloud, ai, much more the root of red hat, and arvind christian asked him to come on why? to tell the story better and to shake up the culture david, you know that gary cohn shook up culture on the trading desk at goldman, went to the white house, tried to shake up the culture there, but i think this is a sign that maybe ibm wants to be brought up in the times and be part of a consideration that maybe it should be, which is about the cloud, which we think about as an alphabet, google, we think about amazon web services, azure. ibm wants to be thought about. they're in the room, and they want to be thought about don't forget ibm has a huge banking business, which wants to

be on prem, always, because they think it is safer. look, i think it is an exciting move exciting move for ibm, because gary can be a change agent gary, he's got his spac, you know what, vice chairman, not on the board, david, not on the board, but vice chairman can be arvind christian's sounding board for a company that needs a sounding board to be able to tell the story of its reinvention and beat the bears or lisa ellis at moffett nathan son. let's see what cohn does i think the stock might react positively. >> meanwhile, he is going to -- cohn robins, he's first name on the door there he'll stay with the spac a lot of that is not on gary it really people believe in cliff given his returns over the years in running his fund. but he's going to stay with that how do you do that how do you how do you vice

chairman of a public company but -- there are others doing it, but he's going to stick with the spac as well that's what he said in the tweet, right >> primary interest in the spac, secondary as a sounding board for arvind christian who brought him in does very a lot of bandwidth i thought he had a lot of bandwidth. i think it is interesting, david. as we go over the culture of ibm, a lot of us think, well, a lot of the critics think it is 1970s '80s corporate gary can shake that up now, carl, the one thing i think people will say is if you want to shake it up, why are you bringing in a financial guy? shouldn't you bring in someone who is from outside that world i would tell you, they have got him, they have got jim whitehurst, that was an arvind christian deal but people don't think much of this spin-off. it is a $19 billion spin-off, that is going to raise the profile of the faster part, the dividend is going to stay the same between them. carl, i think that it is going

to be puzzling to people, why cohn, doing the spac, is vice chair. the answer is i don't think vice chair is going to be a huge time commitment but i do think that gary can be used to say, for christian to be able to say, i want to do this, gary, will it changethings they need someone outside, sure, definitely a curious act, unless you know gary and you know arvind i think it is a nice marriage for both of them >> yeah. that's something tech has had to balance, jim, that mix of finance, knowledge and engineering knowledge. we have seen some companies from the street's perspective and opinion that have maybe had a bit of an imbalance and it cost them >> yeah. look, is ibm light one look at the chart says no. does ibm deserve more respect? when they did the spin-off, which they said is 18 months, and that's been the managed services it was not correctly articulated, i believe articulated on mad money i think arvind christian is

right in the direction but the articulation to the street and you can say that chanos is right, financial engineering, wasn't as clean as it could have been is fwgary going to be dressing p a pig? absolutely not i think it is the opposite i think ibm is a gem, iconic company. that's in the coming across. is that arvind christian's fault? arvind is a hand oz s on operat. look, he's vice chairman he can say what he wants he can say, you got to get rid of this, do that match made in heaven i don't know how about this the stock needs something. the stock needs something. >> it does is it a full-time job. not even a full-time job, is it? >> no. oh, no not at all >> just come in and hang out. i don't know hang out, walk around. >> he's going to go to the masters. >> like zoom with people and

just -- all right. i mean, yeah, he's obviously -- he -- wells fargo didn't happen for him. he's not -- his hope of being -- goldman didn't happen for him as ceo. that's over and done with. he's got this part time and then the spac >> that's the way i look at it we want to see will he be on the conference calls i don't think so will he help articulate the story? yes. is the story better than the stock? absolutely but, david, i think that a lot of people are going to look at it the way you did, which is hang out at the masters, use great tickets and i think that is demeaning to him and demeaning to ibm albeit, the spin that made a lot of people may have >> i love the vice chairman jobs those are great jobs, carl that's what i'm hoping for vice chair >> of what >> vice chairman vice chairman, how are you the jets >> the jets. >> vice chairman of the jets

>> we're going to float that in a trial balloon. guys, we're going to get our viewers as many of these names today off the sell side analyst calls as we can. meantime, the ora crargegiseet of state says the georgia runoff results should be known by wednesday morning. obviously big implications for the markets. futures are red. we're back in a moment

it has been quite a ride for snowflake. since the public debut in september, stocks still more than doubling its ipo price.

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time for a mad dash. why do one stock when you can do, like, four >> well, as a metaphor, not a simile alphabet, the price target raised dramatically, morgan stanley, 1880 to 2050. the stock is lower than that there could be a nice gain if this is true but they look at all these -- the sum of it is this is the way

people shop. and alphabet, they believe will be more ads, facebook, by the way, very good at small business, pinterest has drawn a lot of interest from companies trying to reach -- reach a boutique audience, but worldwide, and, you know what, i spoke with marty muse yesterday. he has a lot of new clients. who are the new clients? they're online companies and they ned to advertise online all the companies that we just focused on are beneficiaries i like to focus on alphabet because they have done so well with travel advertising, but who is advertising for travel when we're not going anywhere how about the fact that we might have a vaccine and if we do, people will go away again. >> all right i'm sorry. meaning what for these names >> well, i mean, i think there has been a dearth of advertising from offline that can go online.

i also think that we are really beginning to see this i'd say whole wave, almost a revolution of new companies that don't look or believe in brick and mortar, but they have to advertise and every one of those companies is a way to reach people, snap, reach younger people, pinterest reaches hobbyists, and alphabet reach the online travel companies which have just really shied away from advertising. plus, alphabet, as you know, is a cheap stock based on earnings, because a lot of people feel, you know what, it hasn't truly been able to monetize what it has. especially, i think they're doing a lot in the cloud that is not really the focus of this note. but i do think that the note makes a lot of sense this is a group that a lot of people feel has just been biding time after big run and maybe it can recharge. i'm going with it. i'm going with it. i would look at the stocks as being, david, the tell

the stock that matters is alphabet that's what i'm looking at. >> okay. i'll remember that we got an opening bell -- >> check marcoryk reve. >> maestro over there. we have an opening bell a few minutes away stay with us

futures still looking a little bit soft here on this tuesday morning. china shares, jim, did get a boost. some say it is because the nyse reversed this decision to delist three telecom giants over there, unicom, mobile and china telecom. interesting, jim, to see what reasoning they give. they said it was in light of further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities. >> yeah, i thought it was curious. but you're absolutely right, carl here we go this is, i think, the beginning of china, by the way, back to where it was before the pandemic, of some sort of thaw where there is a recognition that if you do something that is positive with china, the president will distract you with

the georgia situation, you're not going to get a thumb in your eye from a tweet i think right now, let's say the president will more focus on china, and less on georgia, i think the nyse would be, let's say, blasted, blasted, by a series of tweets from the president. but he seems a little distracted i know it is probably in terms of pecking order might be a georgia, like the vaccine, david is focused on the vaccine. and then china, but this is a very big deal that has not going to be able to be reviewed by the president. so the way you want to play china is with jd, missing jack ma jack ma ran afoul of the entire banking edifice, which is run by the prc. david, jack ma is missing, i believe, because he tackled the banking system >> i'm going to get to that in a little bit, jim, in terms of jack ma. let me just say right now, i'll

explain later -- he's not missing. he's not missing i'm sorry. we'll get to it later. he's not missing. >> you found him >> jim, there is a connection between the georgia race and the nyse you know that, right >> okay, i'll play >> come on >> come on kelly loeffler the nyse >> i was going to say, loeffler, i don't know the trading record. andrew had a piece i used to run -- i used to manage senator al gore's money senator gore came to me and said, listen, i can only own cash nobody in congress should be able to trade. nobody but we got some pretty interesting -- i don't know, that was -- did loeffler get any of the allocation for snowflake? i know that frank's coming on, frank slootman. >> yes. >> sure? >> i have no idea. i was pointing that out. you said in terms of china, listen, our relationship with china will be extraordinarily

important, continues to be it will -- it is unclear how much it is going to change under a biden administration, but to jim's point, perhaps the heat will be turned down a bit an you won't be getting tweets out of nowhere that sort of change people's view of a situation overall, we still do seem to be diverging in terms of two sort of economic systems, and our approach in terms of -- within the world itself >> yeah. we will see. we're likely to get a u.s. trade rep, it could make some difference in the margin perhaps. here is a look at the opening bell and the breadth i'm curious on your stuff on ma, because big piece, for example, on "good morning america", this morning, arguing he is in fact missing. >> he's not. i mean, you know, i made some calls on this, as you might expect, and as our viewers probably know, i haven't seen jack ma but i've interviewed him many times, we talked oftentimes

to joe tsai as well, of course, and what i can tell you is this. he's very likely in hongjo, headquarters of alibaba. he's no longer -- sometimes we forget he's no longer involved with either one of these companies -- well, he's no longer involved with the management of alibaba. he's being less visible, purposefully and you can expect that that will continue to be the case for some time. he ran afoul of the -- as jim said, the government, the prc. he's pushed on that line a number of times on the past and been okay. i pointed this out last week and the week prior in terms of some things that he did that certainly aroused some ire in -- among the government, whether showing up with trump tower in 2016, four years ago, almost exactly, during the transition, or couple of other things, but the october 24th piece went too far. and like a lot of people there,

he understands when you have to sort of -- saying to me, lay down or rollover, and kind of just say, no, i'm -- you're not going to hear from me. that's the case. is he not going to show up yeah is he not going to put himself in any position where he could be speaking, yeah, it could be months it doesn't mean he's missing he's not showing up, but he's not missing, he hasn't been captured, he hasn't been taken this is not a chairman wu situation. nothing like that. remember, his, you know, he is most well known businessman in china. he stands for innovation and for growth and a lot of things there. he is committed in that country to try to give back. he certainly has been, at least, and the many conversations we had about it very serious about it i'm told he's going to continue to focus on that and that there is no expectation

that the government is going to move on him in some way. we'll see what happens with ant, whether they go to a holding company structure of some kind and are able to piece back together their hopes for an ipo at some point. let's call it many months from new, but perhaps this year and at some point i would expect we'll hear from jack ma again. but to say he's missing, carl, i guess is, you know, i took that as, well, has he been taken away somewhere to an undisclosed site by the government? no, that's not the case. >> well, one thing you mentioned, that's great news, right. that's great news because i regard him as -- for china but a fantastic innovator, someone who is breath taking in being a terrific capitalist. isn't the problem ant? if ant wins, then the entire banking system could be called into question. i always regard ant as a combination of robinhood, pay

pal, visa, could be anything it does challenge the authority's edifice of finance how do you get around that >> well, it is difficult and, you know, it is funny, because they had checked every box, i'm told, with the government and it really was the speech he gave that changed everything there in terms of the approach it is stunning to just go back, we were talking about what was going to be the largest single ipo of all time, not taking place here, taking place in shanghai, in hong kong it was going to be the largest single ipo of all time and then it was over and the business model of the company is potentially changed and a fairly dramatic fashion in terms of the government clamping down but it doesn't mean -- the chinese are walking a fine line here in terms of not stifling innovation keeping the economy growing in a significant way, but making sure that their authority is not challenged i don't know how they're going to restructure ant to be back in the good graces of government and regulators and obviously mr. ma is not going to be heard from

for quite some time. i'm not sure but i think you can still expect that it is still going to be a potential growth company and one that is innovating, although it is going to be prevented from pulling on some important levers for that growth. >> stock going higher. people are really worried here i think that the comments that david made about where did it go made people feel that alibaba is next to be challenged. i don't know alibaba is a fantastic company if jack ma is laying low, not being in that shark tank for africa, not doing anything that is poking the finger in the eye, what trump did with china, i think the actual company is going to be safe again and that's what caused the stock to drop carl, there is a belief that perhaps capitalism will be reversed by president xi, what david's scoop tells me is, no, it is just -- don't challenge the authority in front of everyone don't give a speech that

questions the authority. president xi is way too powerful to do that look, this is good news for alibaba. and i think that it is also good news from the new york stock exchange we would love to know whether president-elect biden is someone who has talked with the exchange i think president-elect biden very much wants it get off on the right foot with china, a lot of the so-called china stocks are doing great. doing great. >> yeah. sorry, carl, go ahead. >> i was going to say, in addition to your reporting, you couple that with, for example, jd this morning, stifel to buy, 105. they continue to talk about the ongoing presence and growth of online retail in china, 10% compound for the next few years in their view. you put that together with lessening tensions, big founders not going missing and there is a bit of a bold case >> you know, interestingly, jim, you got the -- we have been

blacked out in china that's amazing they have quite some capabilities, don't they >> president xi. >> yeah. >> i get the bulletin about president xi apparently made some pretty tough talk about the military they went from being let's not have a crisis to being let's be on full alert. full alert, full time combat readiness, from president xi i don't know this guy is really establishing himself ahead of president-elect biden. now, here's the question, carl does president xi look at what's happening in our country and try to take advantage of what a lot of people would feel it chaos? i wouldn't put it past them. great worldwide leader probably looks at what we're doing and thinks, you know, carl, maybe president trump ain't going anywhere you could argue that that would

be the view of the president right? am i wrong, carl >> i assume we're going to get an answer to that in the next 24 to 48 hours. we'll see how much friction there is in this house and senate proceeding. >> finally, guys, to wrap this up on jack, also i asked the question a number of times would he ever consider leaving and universally the answer was no way. he's not leaving china he has homes around the world, of course, does mr. ma jim, here is a name you and i talked about a few weeks ago, when elliott came out. public storage i want to get to t you had soit you had some thoughts on it at the time they went after six directors, they got two a nice agreement they got a new lead independent director at the company as well. and they have got a committee now put together that is going to focus on the long-term strategy, planning, growth, capital allocation priority and capital structure management for the company. they wanted them to invest more.

that's kind of funny when an activist comes along and says you're not investing enough in your business and they appear to have gotten some success there, reaching that agreement, did elliott and public storage only weeks after they first came public with their letter >> yeah. and i would tell you that joe russell, the president and ceo, is saying that he's happy with the new board members and corporate government, shifting, lead director changes. i think that elliott, one thing i think people don't realize, david, they got to start realizing it, elliott does a gigantic amount of work when they come in i think they're often very compelling which is why my travel trust owns one right now that -- crown castle i think they made some very dpelidpel i compelling arguments about what crown castle should do and i think the work has been magnificent. i think you might -- you need -- you have a unique perspective

because i know that you have interviewed the company, they don't come in idly they have a good plan and a lot of times management says, hey, that's a good idea correct? >> yeah. and, you know what is interesting is they changed their approach to a certain extent and they certainly can't be thought of as just a one trick pony and in this case, i pointed out because it is rare, i think, that you see an activist, you're not investing enough but that is the case to your point we want you to invest more open more locations, better locations, spend more dollars in terms of that. they also claim there is more diversity on the board now, two added directors, both women, they're going to have an investor day in may. and they turned over five seats on the board so they feel like they have given a strong endorsement to exploit what are already their advantages, jim, and you talked about it, the enviable position of the company overall >> but, david, i think you're

right, you hit on something that is very important. activists, we always have known that they have exhausted the playbook they ought to spin this off, they ought to return this, no. here is a new one. they ought to fix their governance and put more money in the business david, you can argue this could be something radical, it may be the way people going forward who are activists say, which is, you know what, you guys are great, but governance, new people, diversity, spend more money. and i think it is the playbook that a new ceo might put in. i always thought russell was doing a new decent job, just got there. but, wow if this is the way of the future, then you have a lot anger to report on you're talking about harmony >> we'll see not quite sure we're there yet, carl, when it comes to harmony between act vif ivists and the companies they go after. >> that will be a big story if and when it ever happens guys, getting a little spike in crude. approaching yesterday's high

and a lot of the big gainers are energy related to bob pisani. hey, bob >> hello, good morning happy tuesday, everybody this is what is so frustrating for investors. we had a 100-point swing in the s&p 500 yesterday and the s&p, 100-point swing, a notable down day, and what do we get? nothing. no follow through at all no clear trading pattern, no momentum one way or another. this makes it very difficult we twisted ourselves into pretzels yesterday, trying to explain the thinking of the trading community and yet today, it is like it didn't exist at all. so what happens today? as carl mentioned, energy makes a comeback well, it was flattish yesterday. all of the sort of cyclical stuff, reopening stuff, energy, materials, industrials, banks, they're all the stuff that is moving up, even reits which had a terrible day yesterday moves up try to explain this in terms of momentum or investor sentiment it is very difficult tech is flattish by the way. one thing that is moving and

almost every single day is emerging markets the weak dollar is really helping these emerging markets that's been a classic relationship but it is very noticeable. here is the simple one to look at the largest emerging market etf, which is very heavily weighted towards asia and parts of china as well. this is the highest level since 2007 for this, 2007. remember that? that was the asian tigers, remember all that? i was there. most of you weren't. it was traumatic now you see the big moves up against. emerging markets is a big theme for 2021 in terms of the market risk, nothing really changed we talked about this yesterday we tore ourselves into pretzels trying to explain this concerns about the democrats controlling the senate, we'll get an answer to that pretty quickly. concerns about the slow vaccine rollout, concerns an imact on the econo the economy, and supporting earnings vague fears about inflation in

the second half that recovering growth in the high debt levels would drive bond yields higher that's pretty far off. i just want to show you the earnings situation because the market is anticipating a second quarter reopening. and you can just see it in the numbers. there is the fourth quarter. 36 -- the s&p 500, the quarterly numbers, you see how it just creeps up and starts really popping in the second quarter, and the third quarter it really starts popping what does it all mean? they're talking about 30 to 35% earnings higher in 2021 than 2020 and the numbers would be record in terms of total dollar amounts. and those are just the actual numbers, the whisper numbers are much higher than this. the market is anticipating a major roll jou majma major rollout and there you see it in black and white. with the expectations this high, there is a lot of risk in the market strange decision, david mentioned this, about the new york stock exchange, reversing its delisting decision it had decided around new year's

it was going to delist three china telecom companies. china mobile, china unicom and china telecom. they said they decided not to delist it. the only explanation was in light of further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities, i have tested them, they have declined to provide any further guidance on what their decision-making is but i think the answer probably here is that treasury was the one who promulgated the regulations at the request of the president, and it is not exactly clear whether companies should be delisted or not delisted i think it is probably clear that to the nyse it is not clear that those three companies should necessarily have been delisted a strange about face, carl, on that, but that seems to be the obvious explanation. a lot of room for interpretation and you see the bounce from the three companies and the nyse is happy not to antagonize a big listing partner, the chinese government, for any future listings carl, back to you. >> yeah. we'll be looking for some more

background on that, bob. thanks bob pisani when we come back, we're going to get to cramer's investment themes for 2021. first, though, get a look at the bond report today, see how treasuries are faring this morning. yields on the rise across the board. ism manufacturing at the top of the hour in the uk, the pound, stabilizing, as prime minister johnson announces that third national lockdown last night due to covid, of course. and we'll finish with a look at the three-year chart of the dollar index you see what happened to the greenback over the past year or so we'll be right back. competition beat us, again. how? they have a better finance system than we do. i feel like they might have a better finance system than we do. workday. how do they make better decisions faster? workday. got to do something. workday! i think i got something. work... hey, rob, you're on mute.

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jim, you said in recent days that it is time to think thematically for 2021. last night on "mad," you started talking about specific themes like travel and leisure. >> look, i know people have been liking the cruise lines. they're still finished pretty much at the bottom of the s&p. i think it is time to start thinking about people going somewhere. and that means boeing. boeing also dove tails with the notion that maybe we have an

olive branch to china. bunch of -- we a very negative peak yesterday from bernstein talking about dreamliner sales lagging. don't worry about that if we get a return to travel and leisure, we're going to see something very good there. i like airbnb. i have seen some neutral notes saying maybe there is notairbnb. i've seen neutral notes thinking there is not enough supply that will cure itself. i think a great focus is travel and leisure after taking a real breather why didn't you follow it give me a break. travel and leisure is in the hands of the vaccine, but it's time it's time to be thinking about these and i think boeing is the best way to play >> yeah. airbnb gets another initiation this morning out of citi 165. which was i think the opening day high, jim. are you parsing aviation versus cruises versus hotels? >> i think the problem with cruises, we don't know the numbers yet about what -- about the tickets sold, but i think it's going to surprise us. people love cruising and it's

not going to stop. i think you're going to find out that there's a lot of people who are just chomping at the bit to go into a cruise and the one that i've always felt had the best profile in terms of the balance sheet is norwegian cruise they're doing well but they're doing well considering. i mean, look, doing well considering nobody's cruising, but i think people are starting to position themselves for travel i also think that the uber call from deutsche bank, very good call that's travel and we know there's consolidation with doordash about the delivery system which i think is going to be very good i say you've got to focus on this group it's too attractive to avoid >> yeah. the uber needham's topic is uber, jim. their logic is basically if covid has resurgence, then you can fall back on eats. if covid actually does get overcome, then rides take off and they've got a nice sort of

symmetry to whichever way the year turns out >> i really like that. i think that's a great way to put it i was looking for stocks that i think do well regardless of what happens. there you go that does well regardless of what happens including with georgia. digitization, continual theme. my thought has always been there. nvidia and amd health care. new theme. here it's hca. couple of upgrades today why? the democrats, they like health care this is one, by the way, that would actually take off if we saw georgia go democrat. interesting. >> we're going to -- i think we're going to get an answer to that maybe tomorrow morning, jim. we'll see. it will be a lot easier. >> i hope so. >> we'll take a short break as the markets have reversed. dow is up 100. no one likes to choose between safe or sporty. modern or reliable. we want both - we want a hybrid.

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there is going to be a change at the top of qualcomm. long-time ceo steve mollenkoff

going to step down to be replaced by isancrtio amon both gentlemen will be our guests coming up at the top of the hour

let's get to jim and stop trading. i can't under estimate what a huge spook david had about jack ma. during this period when jack ma seems to have gotten in trouble with the government, jd.com has surfaced as the best way to play china. they remain on fire. why? they are a similar situation amazon like. they haven't run afoul of government it's almost like a changing of the guard. alibaba, great company, doing terrifically but with someone affiliated with a challenge to the prc and jd.com which is doing terrifically and no challenge to the prc look at jd.com to be the one even after the smoke clears that the big institutions want to gravitate to china has gotten a green light from president-elect biden who is not going to go to, let's say, financial war with china

the way president trump has. >> yeah. there's a few moving pieces there on the china story for sure, jim. we're going to watch that. should i be checking in with you on what's tonight? >> yeah. we have planet fitness i think that this is one of those at the beginning of the year you make resolutions. do you make a resolution versus worry about getting covid? i think chris rondeau has done a lot to make it so that can't happen with these numbers, i don't know i want to be in shape. i don't want to get sick are they contradictory i think that chris rondeau has a way to do it so you're not sick. let's see what he has to say. >> let's hope so, jim. see you tonight. nice to all be back. >> thank you. >> "mad money" at 6 p.m. eastern time with jim cramer good tuesday morning welcome to squawk on the street, i'm david quintanilla. s&p back to 3719

we're looking out for ism and we'll begin with the leadership transition over at qualcomm and david has more on that >> joining us now as we promised in a cnbc exclusive steve mollenkoff and cristiano amon. good to have you both here price is up 2% cristiano, good for you. you're staying on the job until june i haven't seen you smiling you already look happier a lot of people wonder why would a 52-year-old ceo after all you've gone through, these challenging years, all of the different things you've had to deal with finally sort of things have quieted, why at your age at this point would you want to step down? >> i think first of all, thank you very much for having us on and really exciting day for us both, i think. for me, i've been thinking about this for some time the company is in a great

position we've been through a lot but we're also in a very, very strong position. in my mind, that is probably the best time to give it to the next leader you know, and i have just incredible amount of faith in cristiano. we've worked together for a long period of time i think the mistake is to go too long and make sure that it's in safe and very, very capable hands. i think that's really what you're seeing today. >> but, you know, steve, i've talked to some people about this i mean, you remember that scene -- well, i won't go into that you've gone through so many different things shaw shank re against scene where he crawls through the sewer. he gets to the light finally i've made it i've escaped i think of you that way. whether it was the antitrust challenges across the globe, the fight with apple, avoiding the hostile bid from broad com dealing with the nxpi situation and of course the ftc and then you get to this clearing, this

point where the sun is shining on you and the stock is up 70% last year, whatever the number was, 74% over the last year. i still don't quite get it what are you going to spend your time doing now you're certainly not going to be as busy as you were. >> i think i still have some time left on my shift, of course, as you know. i'm going to support cristiano however he deems appropriate and i look forward to doing that, but the reality is, you know, we've been through a lot and you mentioned a bit of it, but what we didn't do was we didn't lose focus on the roadmap and the great technology that really makes the company successful in the future a lot of that has to do quite frankly with the hard work cristiano did. it's a great time to do it i don't have any plans i'll probably do a little fishing, but most importantly i'm going to sit back and cheer on the good people at qualcomm and watch it be even more successful. >> if another significant ceo job were to open up, do you see yourself want to be potentially

interested in taking it? >> that's not my plan right now. my plan is to make sure that this succession goes smoothly. i'm going to do a lot of fishing and i'm going to cheer on cristiano. >> all right we want to see your instagram account. we'll follow that and make sure you're getting all of those fish cristiano, you've obviously been running the 5g strategy, been at the company 22 years you're a different person. how is qualcomm going to change? how are you different? >> very happy to be here very exciting day for me such an honor and privilege to be ceo of this incredible company. more than appreciate steve and the board confidence in me look, we are super excited about the future of qualcomm we probably have one of the single largest opportunities in front of us. as 5g becomes essential to the digital economy, it's going to go into a number of other industries if you look what we have done just the last earnings call, we

start talking about the company not just about the licensing business and the answer business, we talk about now they have hand set business, automotive business, internet of things i think the company will continue to diversify and really build on this opportunity in front of us as 5g takes the company into a number of different areas. >> again, how do you see your leadership style being different from mr. mollenkoff's and/or any changes that may take place at the company once you take the reins later this year? >> yes no, it's a -- that's a good question look, i've been with the company for 23 years so i have a lot of the culture in me. steve and i also have been working side by side for 15 years, and i don't expect to see any change in the strategy we'll continue to build in the strategy the way i am, like many of the other folks at qualcomm, i'm

passionate about technology. we'll continue to build on the strategy, but one thing will never change we'll always strive to be the leader in wireless and really working technologies that matter >> steve, let me come back to you. the next six months are not unimportant as you sort of transfer over to cristiano, but give me your sense here of the biden administration will take office in two weeks. any real change you see in terms of their approach whether it be 5g and/or the national champion that you are certainly viewed as by many now including the outgoing administration to a certain extent or are you seeing things remaining more or less as they've been >> well, i think for a lot of companies i think you might be more apprehensive, but i think for us we're expecting a lot of stability, and it's primarily just due to the type of technologies that we work on i think we're still going to be at the top of the agenda for

anybody just because of what we work on and i would tell you i think the growth of 5g and all the things that cristiano talked about, i'm guessing that that will provide a lot of stability in terms of the new administration i'm looking forward to having those conversations but i expect them to go pretty well. >> you haven't had any as of yet with the incoming administration >> we've had people reach out and obviously given the position that we play in this very important technology, we do garner some interest, but i expect it to be a pretty smooth administration. >> cristiano, china remains an important market to the company for any number of reasons. that is a relationship that has been fraught to say the least over the last few years. how do you view china right now and of course as you step into this job six months from now, how are you going to deal with sort of the challenges there in terms of our two countries and what are not a lot of areas of agreement? >> you know, we may be in a --

such a fortunate position given our technology often it's had a stabilizing element to that relationship our technology is important for china, growth and visions and mobile and own domestic market also our licensing business has created a benchmark of respect for intellectual property. we expect that it's stability to continue we are fortunate that what we do is important for both sides and we expect it to be that way. >> cristiano, you've overseen to a certain extent the execution of a number of merger and acquisition deals. is that going to continue to be an important component of the company strategy >> look, it's always been. i point to we have over the past few years been building this business on that end and one important acquisition was necessary to welcome in our

organic growth strategy because of tdk i expect qualcomm to look at mna as ways to augment our growth strategy one thing that is good about our growth strategy is demand for technology outside mobile phone is already dead and we look at abilities -- look at companies that can increase our core competences and continue to look into those markets and look into them. >> steve, give me a quick take when you look back at your career as ceo. what are you most proud of >> really, that we kept the engineering culture and the technology in the program. i'll probably be remembered as the person that dealt with a lot of adversity, but that's really not the part i'm proud of. i'm proud of the fact that we remained strong on the things that matter, which is technology, in the face of all of that adversity. so that's what i'll remember and it will be a good memory >> yeah, god, i didn't even add to some of the challenges, activist investors what's a day going to be like

for steve mollenkopf. >> i'll tune in to hear what you guys are saying at the beginning of the day look, i'm looking forward to having the ability to unplug and, as i said, cheer on cristiano. it's going to be a fun day i think. >> cristiano, we look forward to talking to you in the future and certainly appreciate, both of you, joining us this morning thank you. >> thank you very much >> thank you good stuff, david. thank you. markets holding gains after the ism index beat estimates the manufacturing index and hit a 2 1/2 year high. after the break, don't miss an exclusive with imf economist gita gopinath. still more on squawk on the streets. don't go anywhere with dow up 77 points your grooming business is booming. you need to hire.

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a lot of global macro. let's get to steve liesman who has a very special guest today hey, steve i'm joined by gita gopinath. thank you for joining us i know you're coming out with your world economic update i wonder if you can give us a bit of a curtain razor are things stronger than you expected or weaker is that different compared to what time period we're talking about? >> steve right now we're going

through a dark winter. if you look at what's happening in terms of virus cases, record highs, hospitalizations, deaths, dark and difficult winter. there is light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the outcome, i think what is true as of now is we're starting out the year at a somewhat stronger point than we had expected in 2020, which is a good thing, but right now it's a race between the virus and the vaccines and, i mean, until we get past this i think this is a pretty difficult period at this time. >> i understand that, i'm wondering if you could explain to us, and i have a lot of sympathy what economic forecasters are going through because it takes more epidemiology than it does actual economics, but what do you expect to happen are you expecting widespread distribution of a vaccine and return to pretty much normal by, what, the second or third

quarter? >> it varies across different paths. for advanced economies, many of them, you know, the projections are that there will be widespread coverage in the summer, somewhere in the summer towards the end of summer, beginning of the summer depending on the country, but if you want to cover the world as a whole we are looking at getting towards the end of 2022. there is still a big gap in terms of vaccine coverage, but at the same time along with vaccine coverage is the factor about the stimulus we've had the news about the additional stimulus in the u.s., the stimulus that's been announced in japan so i think there is this -- the vaccine is stimulus driven recovery that one could expect in the second half of this year. >> just to dig into that a little bit more, gita, this is morgan thank you for being with us. this idea of a recovery in the second half of this year, there

doesn't seem to be from the wall street standpoint how strong and how fervent that can be the risk to the up side you take that and couple it with fed monetary policy and central bank monetary policy the world over that's been very loose and there seems to be this debate about what that's going to look like, whether central banks have to pull back where do you land in that debate >> if you look at most of the major economies of the world and you look at where their inflation is, it's below target in many of these economies if you look at one year ahead inflation expectations it's below their target the argument to be raising rates any time soon doesn't seem to be there. there is reason for rates to stay low, at least for the near term even if you look at wage pressures, expectations, there's not that pressure. interest rates will stay low in terms of steve's question about the extent of the rebound, i think what we are seeing is quite a difference across

countries. this is even within advanced economy groups there's a difference in the rate recovery in the u.s. relative to what we're seeing in the euro area we'll have the numbers out on the 26th what you will see is very differential speeds of getting back to the pre-covid levels, even within the advanced economy group. >> yeah. i am curious in terms of the near term, especially in a week where you see the u.k., for example, going back under this broad-based lockdown, from an economic stand point specifically based on everything we know, all the data we've gathered over the past year going through this pandemic, are the economic tradeoffs too great when you see lockdowns like this take hold? >> what we've seen in the world is that there are countries where there is no tradeoff an example is china where you have, you know, they've done extremely well in terms of containing the virus and they have one of the economies that is rebounding the classes.

on the other hand you have countries and some in latin america where you both have very high number of cases and deaths per capita and you have an economy that's doing quite poorly so, you know, i think what we're learning, again, this is the scientists to comment on, what we are seeing is that having an early enough lockdown, which is stringent enough so that you don't end up with exponential growth in the cases helps bring about the recovery somewhat faster and helps with containing the spread there is no simple solution to how to deal with this pandemic >> gita, i want to follow up on morgan's questioning about central banks. if your forecast for these turn arounds come true, are the central banks too wide open? do you expect this to be a year where some of the easy policy that's been put out there is dialed back? i'll just remind you, raphael

bostic, the fed president, do you expect that from developed central nation banks this year >> i expect central banks, especially in developed nations, to be pretty cautious about rolling back any support so you could see a situation, for instance, where you might have some sort of a blip in inflation as you see a strong recovery because of, say, supply restraints but i can see looking through that and waiting to see a more durable increase in inflation before they have-they do much more substantially with respect to their policy measures and, again, like i said, measures with expectations, for many the concern is about not reaching the level of their inflation target >> and speaking of inflation, again, picking up on morgan's question here, the inflation

issue is a demand issue and a supply issue tremendous demand in goods in part because at least in america and i'm sure in other developed nations and developing nations you can't buy the services so you're shifting that money over towards goods purchases, but a big part of the inflation story is also the supply side. to what extent do you expect world trade to rebound and provide that supply that will ultimately keep a lid on inflation? >> i mean, world trade in goods has rebounded, you know, much faster than we saw during the global financial crisis in line with the kinds of rebounds we saw in economies as they reopened so we are seeing a rebound still we're not all the way back to the pre-crisis levels, but, you know, i think in terms of concerns with breakdowns of supply chains, thankfully we aren't seeing too much of that at least not enough to give

concerns that there will be serious supply shortages we should expect to see the recovery, the services trade is still quite weak >> gita, one last question here, i know you've been focused on the issue of inequality. some of that gets focused, by the way, on central bank policy which helps assets and those are held by wealthy people other gets to the fiscal policy which may or may not be targeting those who are on the lower end of the income spectrum sufficiently what is your view on what can and should be done right now to address the inequality on the payment that's been inflicted and the way to help people who have them? >> inequality is going to be one of the major challenges once we get past this pandemic and we are in the strong recovery phase. i can see economies coming back with momentum. overall savings rate and stimulus and economy, but the concern is look at the workers who are getting harder hit, you

know, the low income, low skilled young workers, women, i mean, these are the sectors where you are seeing people drop out of the work force. you need to have targeted support. it's not going to be general but targeted support one other measure we think is very valuable is public investment spending, especially the right kind and green infrastructure investment. that is job intensive. that can be another way of bringing back another. >> gita gopinath, we'll see you not too long from now with your world economic update. >> thank you, steve. thanks to gita. >> morgan, back to you >> thanks to you, steve, for bringing us that interview it is now time for our etf spotlight. chip sector ticker smh with a group up more than 50% over the past 12 months it's up 1% in addition to qualcomm,

something we talked about earlier in the show, check out micron getting a double upgrade over at citi from sell to buy. citi expecting a well upgraded in the dram memory chip. the shares are up 4.5% today up more than 40% in the past two months we'll be right back. stay with us folks the world's first fully autonomous vehicle is almost at the finish line today we're going to fine tune the dynamic braking system whoo, what a ride! i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq 100 like you you don't have to be a deep learning engineer to help make the world a smarter place does this come in blue? become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq does this come in blue? - [narrator] if you're thinking about going to school online, southern new hampshire university is where you belong. we've been online for more than 25 years

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shares of alibaba up this morning, you can see almost 4% last hour we had a conversation about jack ma. a number of reports out there claiming that he is, quote, so called missing making it clear based on conversations i've had with people who are aware and what he is doing, he is not missing. he is laying low you can parse that to a certain extent did he miss an appearance? yes. is he missing? no is he laying low yes, because he on october 24th criticized the government to a certain extent or at least the

evolution of its -- on the financial side -- the financial system itself and it was a line crossed. it's not something ceos in this country necessarily have to be concerned about of course given we have free speech. they don't i know our viewers know that but perhaps it's worth repeating mr. ma has been the most outspoken and the most renowned in china the richest man, alibaba having been founded by him and financial as well which was going to go public in the largest ipo of all time until mr. ma crossed regulators with those comments on october 24th and they moved to shut that down but it doesn't mean that we won't hear from him again at some point it does mean that we probably will not be hearing from him at some time. most ceos in china don't speak a lot. mr. ma, of course, is the exception rather than the rule, but in this case he went, as people tell me, too far and knows it now and, therefore,

don't expect to hear from him, but it doesn't mean that he is missing. he's not apparently he's keeping himself quite busy in his home >> interesting, david. big story with big implications. of course, we're still left wondering, as president xi pulls on that leash on private enterprise and specifically ant, what is the end game there how big will ant be allowed to be and what corners of the economy will they not be allowed to dominate as they do in many cases. >> payments obviously is where they already are it's micro loans and credit where there was a real growth opportunity and where it's very much unclear at this point where the government will allow them to truly expand. you know, there were some reports about the government taking ownership of certain parts of the business. from what i've heard, that is not the case there is the possibility and, again, this is speculation at this point that months from now you could have a new structure of some kind with a holding company and different units of

it and perhaps you could take the holding company public, but there's no doubt, morgan, that the growth opportunity for ant seems to have been mitigated by the government reacting almost solely to the comments of mr. ma in october >> yeah. can't help but think we're still pretty early in the story. so many question marks that you laid out, david. i note in china, there is this precedent for the chinese government if they are not, i guess, pleased with comments that ceos are making or how powerful or perceived powerful companies in that country get, i think back to anbon and some other companies in the past however many years basically dismantled or leadership changes, et cetera so we'll definitely keep a close eye on this. good to hear he's not missing, just laying low as you put it. meantime though, we're going to get to sue herera with a covid update >> reporter: good morning,

morgan the fda says available data does not support changing the authorized dosing or schedules of covid-19 vaccinations this follows discussions about ways to stretch the vaccine supply and immunize more people which included ideas like reducing the number of doses, extending the length of time between doses or even cutting the dosage in half meanwhile, in daytona beach, 1,000 people campeds out overnight in a stadium parking lot to get in line for their covid-19 vaccine some fully prepared with snacks, pillows and blankets. brittain beginning the third national lockdown today with people ordered to stay home in an effort to stem the spread of coronavirus. prime minister boris johnson said the country's national health service is at risk of being overwhelmed within 21 days. in china, a city of more than 8 million people is facing strict testing and isolation measures after authorities reported just six new locally transmitted coronavirus cases over the weekend

you are up to date carl, i will send it back to you. >> sue, we'll see you in an hour thanks, sue herera. gm auto sales are out. let's get to phil lebeau >> reporter: for the fourth quarter general motors reporting better than expected sales with sales rising 4.8%. the estimate was for an increase of 2.4%. for the year not surprising sales came down. down 11.8% in the united states which is, again, not surprising given the fact of what we've seen with covid-19 and the impact this year however, what have we talked about time and again about the demand for full-size pickup trucks they increase this year. in fact, sales of the gmc sierra and chevy silverado, up 4.8% think about that 4.8% increase in full-size pickup sales in a year when overall sales went down more than 11%

>> phil, we always sort of wonder, it's changed over the years, what other big numbers are we going to look for today >> reporter: you're also going to hear from toyota and fiat chrysler we will hear from ford tomorrow. we're expecting similar to general motors better than expected sales still strong demand even though the full year sales for 2020 are going to be lower. that's just the fact of the matter because of how much production was shut down basically between april and mid may. >> yeah. we all remember what factories were going through at that point. phil, we'll talk to you at that time thanks our phil lebeau on gm. when we come back art cashin with ubs will about back with a look at 2021 quick break. back in two minutes. ter decisions faster? workday. got to do something.

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we are about an hour into trading on this tuesday morning. dow did hit a session high up 162. we've given most of that back. let's bring in art cashin. director of operations at ubs. good morning good to talk to you again. >> good morning. thanks it's good to be here >> you did say in your morning note that stocks could rally somewhat but not by a great deal that certainly describes the market action so far what do you think the dynamics were yesterday because for a while there we were looking at the worst opening day of the year since the depression >> yeah. i think yesterday was kind of a strange day and i think what happened was if you looked at the equity markets globely before our opening they were almost universally better. europe and most asian markets. so i think they were buyers into

the u.s. opening and then i think what may have happened, which was something i overlooked a bit initially, you know, new month, new year, you expect new money, but i think this year perversely people may have decided to book some profits in the new fiscal year and you can say, well, why wouldn't they wait on capital gains tax and whatever the presumption is if you do get a change in capital ains, it won't be retroactive to the first of the year. it will be effective whenever such a bill will be passed i think basically the buying on the opening i think may have come off shore, probably europe. and then they got hit with some early selling. technicals took over and the market eroded and we kept going down until perversely the european markets closed, which indicates that they may have

flipped in mid morning and then we saw that the technicals got worse. it looked like we were up at about noon at our lows it looked like we were going to have a major reversal -- technical reversal on the day, and i think that scared people into the final bout of selling and then we had some bargain hunting and they came back halfway in the dow so it was a strange day, not driven by any real hard news but flexibility of some early supply and demand and some tax considerations >> interesting speaking of hard news, the consensus is that we'll get a result on georgia, if not tonight, then in the morning and there's a lot of discussion, art, about different asset classes trying to sniff out the result bitcoin, rates, stocks do you trust any of those as a tell >> well, i would advise the

viewers to be very, very careful. election days in key elections are a rumor monger's paradise. i've been doing this 60 years and i will tell you invariably when it was a key election you get a phony rumor which are illegal to reveal until after the polls close or my favorite is somewhere in the affected area several of the voting machines broke down, and when the mechanics came in to fix them, they saw in the re-opened machines a lopsided results, that republicans were ahead by 3 to 1 or democrats were ahead by 2-1. so you are going to get those rumors and the viewers should be very careful to ignore all rumors during the day about what's going on. secondarily, i think that there's a subtle concern about this if the democrats take control of the senate by winning both those

seats, not that they're going to have the ability to ram through a lot of changes, but they want the ability to name the chairman of every committee if they name someone liberal enough that would give the whole senate a move towards a more liberal or left wing side. so people under estimate we who aren't in that business full time, you don't estimate correctly how important it is to have control of the chairmanship of each committee, and that's a little bit about what this election is about. >> art, it's morgan. happy new year it's great to speak to you. >> happy new year to you, too. >> i wanted to get some of your thoughts on the fed speak you've gotten raphael bostic yesterday who gave what i think amounted to a bullish outlook for the coming months but suggested that a bond buying recalibration could actually

happen in 2021 do you think a taper tantrum or a shift in monetary policy that at least based on some of the comments we've gotten up until this point from the federal reserve, that could be something that's in the cards this year? how real is that risk? >> i think you were very right to focus in on that. that was an important statement yesterday. it fits in with the idea that we're seeing some very mild hint of strengthening inflation and that the fed is aware of it. we have the money volatility has been very, very dull and dormant and you don't usually get inflation without the velocity of money people have to lend to their spending we're beginning to see some of that we think the fed won't react until they get above a 2% inflation rate and look like it's going to stay there, but i think bostic should have given

everybody an important heads up here that inflation looks like it's beginning to change and, therefore, fed policy may adjust and that will be very different. we've had to deal with rates are so low first of all, that makes for there is no alternative. you can't be in the bond market. you have to be in stocks secondarily, in many sectors and industries with rates at virtually zero, the whole sector benefits if that begins to change, i think it was jim cramer earlier today said guys are going to have to pay attention to individual stocks rather than sectors. and i think that was a very apt statement. morgan, i say it raised my eyebrows, too. he's a bright man. that's not the full fed. you have to keep your ears open. >> finally, art, you know, we

love to turn to you on stories that are a bit nebulous and become more firm later on. i'm thinking of this south african variant, not the u.k. variant of the virus but the south african one, which some are worried about because they believe it may require a redesign of the vaccine. we don't know. i wonder how much you're thinking about that? >> well, the -- i have been thinking about it. i mentioned it in my comments actually two weeks ago first with the early mutation but then when you picked the one up in south africa my good friend, david cotak who you've had on from time to time, he's very worried about the south african mutation and you're absolutely right. one of the key things would be if the mutation makes the virus far more resistant to the existing vaccines, tampering

with them will be difficult. the rollout is not going well. if we suddenly had a new strain popping up, it will be difficult. we have, i forget what state it's in, but we have somebody in the united states who didn't have a travel history who appears to have one of the mutations. so that game is still going on yes, we've got vaccines. there is no victory yet. we've got to get past that the mutation, you're very right, carl, to look at that. the potential of it to the market is huge not being affected yet because it's a little too early to see whether it's resistant to vaccine and whatever, but it's something the viewers should watch very carefully >> art, as always, our thanks to you. look forward to talking again soon stay well. >> my great pleasure happy new year to all of you thank you. >> same to you, art.

morgan >> carl, thanks. as we head to break, check out shares of amazon they're up fractionally right now. amazon is buying 11 boeing 737 jets to join the company's air cargo network in 20201 and 2022. we noam ma zon has been building out the transportation network for years from now, but this marks a note annuable shift in r strategy it's the first time azamon will own it versus leasing. stay with us

it's election day in georgia d senate control hangs in the balance. professor jeremy siegel lays out what the outcome could mean on trading nation dth cnbc dth com. more "squawk on the street" coming up.

welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm frank holland. stocks are off their highs with the dow and s&p moving between positive and negative territory. energy remains the outperformer. diamondback, obvious si den tall and apache are some of the leaders. they're pushing oil prices towards their highest levels since the start of the pandemic. now i'll send it back over to you, carl. >> all right, frank. thanks very much frank holland. as we go to break, take a look at some of the chinese telecom giants soaring after the new york stock exchange reverses its plan to delist them in compliance with an executive order that barred investment firms that aided the chinese military it consulted with relevant regulators china telecom, mobile and unicomeback with that. we'll be back in a couple of minutes. stay with us sales are down from last quarter

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welcome back to "squawk on the street." hartford health care is administering the final dose of the pfizer vaccine to the front

line health care workers this comes as connecticut is rolling out the first dose of the vaccine to thousands of nursing home residents throughout the state as well joining us now is hartford health care ceo jeffrey flacks thank you for being here >> happy to be here. >> you're distributing the second dose to your workers. what does that process look like and based on what we've seen so far from injections of those front line workers, what's been the reaction physically? how have people, i guess, fared getting this shot? >> we're very proud. we had 15,000 members of our organization now be vaccinated over the last three plus weeks it's been an incredible process to watch so often we refer to people working health care as heroes. but i often describe the people doing the vaccine today the very heroes as pioneers it's been truly amazing. and we really had very limited complications this point nobody has been hospitalized

it's really been a very smooth and efficient process. just in credibly proud of the courage and strength of the people working the front lines of health care who are coming forward and getting the vaccine. >> interesting so as we mentioned that nursing homes in connecticut as well will start to get the vaccine this week. are you involved in those efforts as well? >> we are. largely connecticut, the nursing homes are being administered through the partnerships with cvs and walgreens. but we at hartford health care do have several nursing homes under our direct ownership and we are supporting our nursing homes. so that is moving forward also >> so, mr. flaks, do you have a sense at all given what you're doing in your hospital and then some of the nursing homes what is holding up the process? i know obviously it may be different in connecticut than other states but there is generally a frustration with the pace at which this is all moving >> it's difficult for me to speak what's occurring in other states but i certainly can speak to connecticut. here we enjoyed a wonderful

partnership and close collaboration throughout the crisis working with our governor and with our legislative leadership and this process has been very well coordinated here in connecticut. the vaccine is largely distributed through the department of public health. we're doing about today about 2,000 vaccine% das per day. it is really how much vaccine comes into the state our health system, we're built for this we're now planning to do upwards of 20,000 vaccines a day with the model that we've created with ten locations throughout the state that do the distribution and do the vaccine. so, again, i think in our state with a well coordinated process, we're going to be able to do this as the vaccines come into our state. >> what are your expectations in terms of when the broader population will be able to get the vaccine and when you may get close to having them while vaccinating? >> there are allocation task

force at the state level in fact, this meeting today, we're going to be in discussions with governor over the next two days as we look to move beyond 1-a and possibly into 1-b and 1-c. so as time goes forward again, i think the rate limit factor is how much vaccine comes into the state from the federal distribution but as it comes into the state, we're built for this we're ready to do it i'm very confident that the coordination across all the health systems in the state are going to work in a very tight vacuum to ensure we can distribute this over the next several months to our broad public >> yeah, jeffrey, we're talking about vaccine distribution but in the meantime, we have seen particularly from a national level we've seen the covid-19 cases continue to rise. record hospitalizations, record deaths connecticut was obviously one of the states that was hard hit early on i'm curious what you're seeing in your hospitals now and perhaps even more importantly what the lessons that have been learned are from the spring. how different is this dynamic in

terms of people that do go into the hospital, for example, we've got therapies as you mentioned, vaccine rollouts and we know intubation is not the right approach necessarily so what does it look like in terms of treatment and hospitalizations now versus earlier last year? >> certainly so in connecticut, we've been on the forefront of this crisis and we have largely been able to manage the crisis through coordination of our health systems across connecticut effectively. what we're seeing today is a a general plateau. we had hospitalizations at about 70%, 75% of where they were at the height of the spring it's been that way for a number of weeks we certainly have angst about now the post holiday potential implications we're watching it very closely but we look at leading data. so from a testing standpoint, right now our testing positivity rate is about 6% to 7% over the last seven days.

so that's within reason in terms of what we've been experiencing over the last number of months but the point i really like to make is across the country, everyone is looking to go back to normal. everyone says when we go back to normal, in health care we're going to be better than normal very spoefkecifically the reaso less people are having less icu care is because we're better. >> jeffrey flaks, thank you for joining us today >> thank you congp mi uin the next hour, do not miss snowflake's frank slootman "squawk alley" starts after the break.

good morning it is 8:00 a.m. at snowflake headquarters in san mateo, california it's 11:00 a.m. on wall street and "squawk alley" is live kin k . ♪