it is 5:00 a.m. in washington, and here is your top five at five president joe biden, officially taking office and wasting no time getting down to work. we are live in d.c., laying out the top priorities for the new administration markets welcoming the new white house with open arms and big money as stocks hit record highs across the board the biden administration getting an offer from one tech giant to help with its promise to roll out 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days united, pledging more cost-cutting measures as pandemic problems continue to

hammer the airlines bottom line. jay-z looking to help minority entrepreneurs breaking into the cannabis business. the new multimillion dollar initiative it is thursday, january 21st, and this is "worldwide exchange." well, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, and welcome from wherever in the world that you may be watching i am brian sullivan, everybody hello, and good to be back with you at least for one day on this thursday here's how your money and the markets look right now at this 5:00 a.m. hour futures, they are mixed. mildly higher, though, all this after the s&p 500 and nasdaq rose 1 1/2 and 2% yesterday. by the way, marking a new record for an inauguration day. we'll tell you more about that soon all three indexes are now at record highs again the markets are doing so far on this holiday shortened week. the dow is up more than 1% while

the s&p and nasdaq are up even more 2 and 3 1/2% respectively. of course we are also in the midst of earnings season, and today, another big day you get results from ibm, intel, csx, and union pacific and huawei mwhile we may be onls into 2021, we have been crunching numbers in the hottest stocks in the s&p 500 this year. all three are up about 30% or more just this year. they are names you know but they might not be names that you expect to top the leaderboard, who are they we're going to show you later on in the show. we call that a tease all right. let's go now around the world, worldwide, asia, the nikkei in japan and shanghai, 1%

the hang seng dipping in china we are not seeing huge moves either way but of course we do, we'll bring that to you. let's top it off with this to the development on the biden administration's bid to get more vaccines out to more americans and one technology company's offer to help. rahel solomon has more on that and the other top stories. >> that would be amazon offering the new administration help in its bid to distribute covid vaccines cnbc has learned that president biden received a letter from the ceo of worldwide business saying it's ready to leverage operations to help the administration with its goal of vaccinating 100 million americans in its first 100 days, and the offer comes as the company tries to get priority access to vaccines for its front line workers china's three biggest telecommunication companies have reportedly asked for a review of the decision by the new york stock exchange to delist their shares so according to bloomberg, and

filings in hong kong, china mobile, china unicom and telecom have appealed the decision by the nyc, triggered by an executive order by former president trump, the companies admit there's no guarantee the request to review will be successful, and take a look at shares of united airlines, under pressure this morning following its 4th quarter results, down about 2% in premarket. the company posing its fourth straight quarterly loss, and says it expects first quarter revenue to be down 65 to 70% from the same time in 2019 united says that it expects to surpass its prepandemic margins by 2023, but also warned that sales will suffer early this year as the health crisis continues. in the meantime, don't miss united's ceo live on "squawk box" coming up at 8 eastern. brian, we'll send it back to you. >> rahel, thank you very much, we'll see you in a bit now to d.c., as president, joe biden prepares for his first

full day on the job as commander in chief and wasting no time in getting down to business, signing off on a series of executive orders following his inauguration tracie potts joining us now from d.c. good morning, tracie. >> investors may want to pay attention. he's signing orders fast and furious, and more are coming today. some of the things he wants to do like move vaccine quicker, you and rahel were talking about that, some of those things are going to require congress's approval. >> president of the united states. >> reporter: the biden administration's first full day. >> we're not wasting any time. >> reporter: promising at last night's inaugural celebration to meet the moment. >> the pandemic, economic crisis, racial injustice, the climate crisis, and threats to our very democracy. >> reporter: president biden signed more than a dozen executive orders on day one ending the muslim travel ban, stopping border wall

construction, requiring masks on federal property, and rejoining the paris climate fwragreement world health organization. >> there's no time to start like today. >> reporter: more orders are coming to help schools and businesses reopen and reverse the ban on transgender persons in the military. he's already getting push back from some republicans. >> i didn't find any of the orders that i agreed with and many of the orders will lead to unemployment. >> reporter: president biden needs congress to pass his immigration bill, creating a path for citizenship for undocumented immigrants to approve his $1.9 trillion covid relief, and confirm his cabinet. nominees for transportation and defense are considered today vice president kamala harris promise to go carry out his vision on capitol hill >> the courage to see beyond crisis, to do what is hard, to do what is good. >> reporter: she's the tie breaker in what's already shaping up to be a fierce battle in the senate. now, president biden is

extending some trump policies like the ban on evictions, renters now protected until march and student loan payments not having to pay those federal student loans now until the end of september brian, it will be interesting to see today how the markets react to that extension! >> right now we are seeing futures mixed to slightly higher but we will pay attention to it. tracie potts in d.c., thank you very much. tracie mentioned markets, why don't we get back to them. stocks are hovering at all time highs amid president biden's inauguration, and the prospect of 2 trillion in new stimulus. the next guest warns it may be time for you to moderate your expectations robert teeter is the managing director and head of investment policy and strategy group at silver crest asset insmanagemen and he joins us now. why do you think now might be the time if not taking money off the table, at least a little bit cautious >> that's right, i think

cautious is the right word i think being selective is important here a couple of signals we look to first is that the s&p is 14% above its precovid highs that shows we have come a long way. we have work to do on covid recovery but the market has gotten far ahead of that and signals in lower priced stocks doing well since the vaccine news, nonearners, doing well that comes to the fact that we have come a long way since early november time to take a pause, revisit allocations and be selective in terms of what you own. >> what is the biggest risk right now, do you think, robert? >> well, i think investors rightly have their eye on inflation. one of the things supporting valuation is low interest rates, ten year around 1%, and dividends more like 1 1/2, stocks are compelling. they have their eye on inflation as a risk factor that could emerge it's possible we get a brief inflation scare along the year, tips at 2%

feds expectations are 2% consensus, 2%. if we come with inflation above 2% that's going to catch attention and might spook investors briefly. we think this economy has a lot of capacity. it has shown itself being elastic on the supply side, able to expand and adjust, and unlock productivity we don't think inflation concerns are likely to be long-lived. >> we've got a story on cnbc.com, legendary investor, jeremy grantham thinks the markets have gotten ahead of themselves, and investors need to be cautious have we gotten ahead of ourselves, pricing in this return to normal, and boom out of the pandemic in the second half of the year >> i think there are pockets of that overall, when you look at valuation, and you think about a calendar year, we have looked back over the past 60 years. a typical year sees pe up or down 15 points we think that's normal i don't think valuation is going to be a tail wind, i think it's

well supported here, i think when you look ahead, you have to find those areas of opportunity, and we're certainly seeing some of those there are pockets of the market where higher percentages of stocks are still pretty far away from their 52-week high, and those are probably the places you want to be looking for opportunity. >> the hottest place of the entire market has been small caps, up 30% in the last couple of months. are you a believer are you a buyer, robert, of the small caps >> i do think there's still opportunity in small cap have to be careful a large percentage of the small cap index is companies that aren't making money, non-earners. there's a lot of opportunity that's one of the benchmarks that has a higher percentage of companies. there is room to go in that particular area, so long as your careful and selective. >> robert teeter, still bullish. thank you very much for coming on the program we'll see you soon take care.

>> thank you >> we are just getting started there is so much still to do on this thursday morning. when we come back, oil prices surging lately, and billing out billions in renewable energy actually help oil prices move even higher? goldman sachs is head of energy research is here plus, the former obama era official, president biden will reportedly tap overseas, the country's biggest banks, and your morning rbi is back, and we talk stocks and the inauguration and why yesterday was indeed historical maybe not for the reason you might think. these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. which is why they're going hybrid, with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach with watson ai helps manage supply chains while predicting demands with ease. from retail to healthcare, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud,

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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." well, all through the show today, we are laying out the top three hottest stocks in the s&p 500 this year, and we're going to count you down, 3, 2, 1 and let's start right now with the third best performing stock so far in 2021, it is early in the year, but carmax, kmx is up nearly 30% to start 2021 the used car seller surging this year car sales, they have been hot. everybody wants to commute alone rather than take mass transit as they go back to the office carmax upgraded yesterday at north coast research so who exactly are the two and one hottest stocks of the year the big reveals are coming up

later on in the show well, oil prices are slipping a bit right now this after data from the american petroleum institute shows a surprise build in inventories last week, that is renewing a little bit of concern about fuel demand. but goldman sachs expects that saudi arabia's upcoming production cut, remember, the saudi surprise of a million barrels a day will neutralize some of the demand weakness, and they see crude rising to 65 bucks a barrel this summer let's talk more about it from one of the guys who made that call, head of energy research and senior commodity strategist at goldman sachs, damian, welcome, good to schat with you again. i know you were bullish, but are you surprised how strong the oil markets have been the last couple of weeks? >> we've learned three lessons this year that help explain why oil is off to a strong start first, we had this surprising saudi cut.

as you mentioned, it helped offset the log downs that are spreading across europe and asia, and second, the outcome of the u.s. election means more stimulus, more oil demand over the next couple of years in the u.s. and third, shale producers have reiterated, again, their commitment to discipline so with a large impulse from vaccines, and the lag response, we're fast forwarding the rally to $65 prices. >> damien, connect the dots between stimulus, and oil demand >> so there are two key policies being put in place globally. policies to help the economic recovery and fight income inequality, and policies to achieve a greener economy. now, the stimulus, ultimately, whether it's in europe, in the u.s. and china, including support for both policies. when you focus on incomes,

you're supporting commodity consumption, you take your bottom third of the income distribution, and roughly half of your spending is on energy, food, capitol goods. so supporting income is supporting commodity consumption. on the investment side, sure, a green economy will consume less oil. to build it, you initially need a lot more diesel trucks when you look at the amount of stimulus and where it's being spent, it's in areas that will directly support energy consumption and will lead to a fast normalization in oil demand, especially when coupled with the benefits of vaccination. >> yeah, and we know that this administration wants to pour billions or hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars into renewable energy, wind, solar, hydro, whatever it may be. i read your last report with interest, damien, because it seemed to suggest that a push for renewables might also

stimulate fossil fuel demand in the near term. is that accurate. >> exactly, right. if you think about the employment of renewables today, and what it is achieving is a displacement of coal, of nuclear generation, for example. what is missing, though, is the pass through for that renewable power to displace transportation demand and the electrical vehicles, their sales are exploding, but they remain a tiny percentage of the existing fleet so as activity picks up, we still need, as i mentioned, those diesel trucks, and consumers still, for the very vast majority drive gasoline cars, and so really what you're seeing is oil demand support, that is not destroyed by renewable investment yet over the long-term, yes. the second component as well, is the incentive to invest in renewables, to some extent is cannibalizing the dollars that typically would have been spent

on oil supply. look at the majors, right, diverting capex from oil projects to renewable projects that contributes to this binding under investment in oil supply that will matter once demand recovers and as we argue, we have higher prices to make this essential commodity balance in '21, '22, and beyond >> damien courvalin, from g goldman sachs. interesting perspectives, we expect nothing less. thank you very much, talk to you soon. >> talk to you soon. on deck, twitter on the hot seat again, putting the freeze on yet another political account. details on the policy violations that force the companies hand ahead. dow futures up 36. we're back after this. today's big number, 58%.

that's how much the dow jones industrial average gained since president trump was inaugurated in 2017 through his last day in office yesterday the dow made 126 new all time highs in that period

these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. welcome back, and good morning. well, on today's show, we're going to show you the three hottest stocks until the s&p 500

so far in this early 2021. we just showed you the third best performer, car max, up nearly 30% to start the year now, comes number two. do you think you know it i bet you don't. it's occidental petroleum. the big oil producer up 33% just this year, and up 128% in the last 90 days it is well off its october low of about $9 to 23 bucks today, but still well off its highs of $85 a share three years ago, but either way, a very solid start to the year for occi up 33% so what company is the number one best performing s&p 500 stock so far in this early 2021? well, that name ahead. all right, but right now, let's take a step outside of the world of money and business, including apparently one huge winner hitting last night's big powerball drawing. nbc's frances rivera is in that

and more was the winning ticket sold in suburban, new jersey, frances? asking for a friend. >> you got to wait i've got other headlines to get to before we get to that pump the brakes a little bit, and i'll fill you in. the headlines this morning, the senate has overwhelmingly confirmed avril haines as the director of the intelligence, the first official member of president biden's cabinet. leading the 18 intelligence agencies and is the first woman to hold the position and according to cnn, trump allies in the senate are warning minority leader mitch mcconnell to stick with former president trump during his impeachment trial saying his support with evaporate otherwise. senator mcconnell said the president provoked the mob seen on the capitol last night's $731 million powerball has a single winner. that one winning ticket not sold in southern new jersey, sorry, but in the state of maryland it matched all the numbers of last night's massive jackpot

it is the fourth largest grand prize in powerball history, and the first winner of the game since september. if you're one of the many who didn't win, we've got the mega millions jackpot on friday, that's worth 970 million you got your chance with that one, brian >> maybe it's my brother and sister-in-law in maryland. if so, i hope they share frances, what happens. you win 730, of course after taxes they throw 500 million in your checking accounts, what's the first thing you do >> not tell a single person. hide that ticket hide that ticket i was talking with dom yesterday, would you go back to work if you won? >> oh, absolutely. i love my job. i'd probably be wearing like a solid gold suit, and i would do the show from any yacht, but i would still do it. >> we can dream. we got friday. >> we can dream. and let's hope it's down there in suburban maryland for my brother and sister-in-law. frances, thank you very much

appreciate it. good luck to whoever that is, and call a lawyer, and don't tell anybody. still on deck. president biden getting down to work, shaping his administration's agenda. ylan mui standing by to lay out the big policy plans by the new white house, and what it might mean for your money. dow futures up 33. we're back after this.

a new year and new records

again for stock. futures are higher right now as the hopes of a big stimulus and a faster normal require equities president biden set to begin his i first day of work. we'll head to washington and the things on his to do list and what it might mean for your money. and the war against covid, cases starting to fall as the vaccine rolls out. could we see an end to this sooner than many think matthew harrison will join us live on thursday, january 21st and this is "worldwide exchange." ♪ welcome, or welcome back, and good morning i am brian sullivan. a little u 2 to start your day thank you very much for joining us here's how your money and investments look right now as we are halfway through the 5:00 a.m. hour on this thursday. stock futures are in the green not up a lot

dow futures implied open 33. hey, we are in the green nonetheless, and pretty much every gain is going to be a new record after the s&p 500 and nasdaq rose 1 1/2 and 2% yesterday. all amid the inauguration, the prospects of new stimulus as well, maybe up to $2 billion, all three indexes are at record highs. the markets are doing well so far tin this holiday shortened trading week the dow is up. the nasdaq has really been the star it is up 3 1/2%. there's been a rotation out of tech this week, we have seen a lot of money into technology. well, throughout the show this morning, we have been working our way through the top three hottest stocks so far of the year i know it's early, but hey, why not have a little fun because a lot of stocks are up bigly in 2021 the top three stock, car max, up j just under 30% number 2, jim cramer nailed it

on twitter he said, maybe oils, it is oil occidental petroleum, up 128% in the last o90 days. the single hottest stock in the s&p 500, do you think you've got it i bet you don't. it is general motors that's right, gm, up 34% so far this year. the auto maker stock soaring to another record this week after announcing a partnership with microsoft on driverless cars this division inside of gm called cruise kind of coming out of nowhere, shocking everybody, as a big time value unlock, and gm shares unlocking a lot of value for their shareholders, gn, you go detroit up 34% you notice the trend, car, oil, car. to start 2021. all right. now to some of this morning's other top headlines, and stories. rahel is back with those and

more what do you got for us >> well, twitter has apparently locked the account of china's embassy in the u.s the social media company says a tweet about uyghur women violated a policy about dehumanization, a muslim majority living in western china. in earnings news, discover financial posting better than expected results for its latest quarter. you can see shares are down 1.2% in pre-market. the credit card company reporting a smaller provision for credit losses. the stock trading lower off record highs turning to washington, president biden is expected to nominate michael barr as comp controller of the currency, according to the "wall street journal." the role overseas banks. barr worked with president obama's administration and worked to put together the dodd-frank act >> thank you very much why don't we stay right there on d.c. news where president biden will begin his first full day as the nation's commander in chief today. he is expected to sign ten executive orders today, focused

on fighting the covid pandemic among those orders, a requirement for people to wear masks in airports and on many trains, airplanes and busses, as well as federal buildings. the establishment of a covid testing board, which will focus on dealing with shortfalls as well, and directing fema to use disaster relief funds to reimburse states for costs associated with emergency supply efforts as well as costs related to opening schools ylan mui joining us live from d.c., with more, good morning, ylan. >> there is a strong desire in washington on both sides of the aisle to turn the page to a new administration and a new president. but the question that's still hanging out there is what is going to happen to the old one, democrats have vowed to hold an impeachment trial for president trump over incitement of insurrection and to start that process, democrats have to actually walk the article of impeachment from the house to the senate. now, we're hoping to get a little bit more clarity on exactly when that might happen

once house speaker nancy pelosi holds her press conference later this morning the timing is tricky the senate may not be able to conduct other business once the trial begins at the very least, democrats don't want to distract from biden's agenda, even as they try to hold president trump accountable. last night, at the very first white house press briefing of the new administration, spokeswoman jen psaki says biden is confident congress can carry out its legislative and constitutional duties. >> that means getting this covid relief package through, having democrats and republicans take a serious look at that and have conversations with each other about how to move it forward and he's going to leave the mechanics, the timing and the specifics of how congress moves forward on impeachment to them. >> but republicans beg to differ they're arguing that it would take 100 senators, unanimous consent, in order for the senate to do other business during the trial. top gop senator john cornyn

tweeted potus called for unity, taking him at his word whether the senate can multitask during the trial, cornyn tweeted nope back to you. >> short answer there. let's get back to this trial, ylan how long could this trial theoretically take >> well, democrats have been floating the idea that the trial might only last a couple of days certainly less than a week, so this may not be a problem for very long in terms of biden's agenda, and the senate impeachment trial colliding. senator lindsey graham has suggested that the trial could begin as soon as monday, and i will say, brian, that the senate finance committee has scheduled a vote on janet yellen's nomination for treasury secretary on friday. hoping to get a full senate floor vote for her later on that day as well. that would suggest that the trial will not start before this business week is over. back to you. >> yeah a lot going on here to

start the year and the new administration president number 46, joe biden ylan mui, thank you very much. now let's connect the dots, get back to the markets and what you should expect from an in investor's perspective on the president's economic agenda. joining us now is bny analyst, alicia, good to see you again. reading your notes you're talking about the three r's, recovery, what are the other two, and why do they matter for the overall markets. >> the other two are reopening and rotation, and they're linked, of course, because we're at the beginning of the cyclical recovery, not just recovery started because of helicopter money that was being spent as people were locked down. but we're really looking at steeper yield curves and higher yields across the board, and increasing inflation expectations as we have seen, that has deep implications for asset classes and the rotation into the value trade and the cyclical trade and

small caps, small caps look terrific, and that's what investors are looking at i think this issue of 100 million doses of shots in 100 days is going to be a shorthand way that the market is going to judge the success of the biden program and getting us all back to normal, and as you know, we have a joke in this industry you don't put a number and a time line together in the same sentence and so the administration has done that, and i think we're going to see whether or not the speed with which they hope to do this is achievable when this is clearly a last mile problem. >> yeah, that's the problem. we are almost on that pace right now. i mean, we're about at 900,000 per day, so i'm not very good at math, but if you have a million a day, over a hundred days there you go we're just under that. we need to ramp it up just a bit because alicia, i think what you're saying is, as we have said for months now, the only

economic data that really matters is the health data, because health data is the economic data. >> that's right. and the market is pricing in a return to normal by the third quarter. and so we really need to stay on the time line and in addition, you know, california, new york, other high gdp states have really locked down and constrained economic activity because of the spread. so you start from first principles again, and that's containing the virus, and that's getting people vaccinated. so that's something the market is looking at, but also the market is looking at earnings, and the narcomarket is looking t stimulus those are the three big things i think earnings expectations need to be moved higher for the second half of the year. revenue growths and earnings can grow gio gio me -- and the on t

of that, the promise of stimulus, $1.9 trillion is double what wall street was expecting for a rescue package and that as you see has ignited animal spirits in the consumer sectors. >> speaking of animals, i feel like i should have an eagle or maybe an owl at this hour, i don't know, on my shoulder because i love this country. i want this country to do so well, and our stock market has done well, but, you know, we both have been doing so well, we look at valuations, i'm not saying they're looking topee, it's not my job, but we made a lot of money lately. are there any better opportunities outside of the united states? we rarely talkabout emerging markets anymore. there's a lot of markets that have been ignored and i just wonder if their multiples are a little more attractive that afternoon ours maybe. >> that's right. so the kind of pain trade for the last decade was emerging markets and really overseas markets. because the u.s. market really took over the entire conversation and the investing

universe, particularly as the dollar strengthened. investing overseas requires a view on u.s. currency. we think the u.s. seller goes weaker because we have a ton of liquidity in the system from the fed and the u.s. government on the fiscal side, and with the weaker u.s. dollar, emerging markets look very attractive we think that's an interesting place. we think developed europe and the u.k. the u.k. is one of our favorite markets right now. it's a little bit counter intuitive. to think the u.k. is a great place to invest capitol. and small caps are not done. small caps on the way out of a recession tend to outperform for close to 18 months so small caps are not done they may take a pause because of the speed with which they've moved. we like the small cap space, and of course tech we're digitizing pes will come in as yields move higher, but earnings are going to propel forward, and so that's what's going to get your stocks

higher not so much the pe but earnings. >> you talk about the u.k. the u.k. is the only large company that has done better than us in their vaccine rollout. you've got israel, bahrain, and the uae. they're small nations. the u.k. and us. so the u.k., maybe that's a reason to be bullish on that market as well, and i am told in my ear by my producer that you whispered to him that you guessed gm correctly as the top performing s&p 500 or did you peak >> no, i didn't peak i guessed. i knew it was autos and oil. you can see the outperformance of those old economy sort of not sexy sectors that are powerings market this year i mean, already they have outperformed the top five tech stocks not including tesla the old economy stocks linked to the transition from fossil fuel

economy to a more sustainable green economy. it's going to have enormous, enormous consequences for those old sectors, as you said in the previous segment we're going to be using more oil right here >> we're probably using more oil around the world in the next 20 years. i know people don't like to hear it, but when you look at population growth, whatever it might be, that's the reality of fossil fuels, maybe not in signifisan francisco and parts of boston, but certainly around the world alicia, we appreciate it great guest, great job we'll see you soon take care. >> thanks, brian good morning. >> all right good morning, thank you. or as i scall it, good evening. your morning rbi, here's a hint, it has to do with d.c. and your money, but don't worry, it's not about politics. it's what stocks did yesterday that they have never done before leading up to an inauguration. dow futures, they're in the green. "worldwide exchange" is back right afr isteth

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these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer

all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. welcome back, and good morning. our friend and colleague jim cramer, the guy does not sleep, by the way, hitting us up on twitter this morning about the top three stocks of the year, and he highlighted ford, and whether that would make the list well, it might after today now, gm is the top stock this year we just showed you that, up 34%. but ford, their blue oval, up there in dearborn, not far

behind, especially with that look at that, ford is up 3 1/2% right now. big pre-market move for ford that makes ford up 28% this year it's up 40% in the last three months so gm and ford may be a good year for detroit maybe a good year for michigan, and either way, the blue oval, ford up 3 1/2% in the pre-market i'm not going to lie, i have no idea why the stock is up 3 1/2% right now. people smarter than me do. good start to the year good start to the day for ford all right. well, i am back, at least for today, and so is the morning rbi, the most random and interesting thing you'll hear all day, and this one has to do with the inauguration. but not about politics it's about what we do, and that is the stock market, and we know the last few weeks have been strong but do you know how strong they have been? ryan dietrich at lpl financial ran historical numbers and look at this.

the period between the election and the inauguration yesterday, the s&p 500 rose 14% and that is the best return for that index between the election and the inauguration since the inauguration has moved to january from march. up 14% jfk and bill clinton's second term tied at exactly an 8.8% return for the s&p 500 and you like ike, he came in, third, it's tied, 6.3% gain between the election and the inauguration by the way, before the inauguration was moved, it would have been herbert hoover, but that's a terrible analogy, and it was in march, so we'll forget about that by the way, a bonus rbi, courtesy of our own market guru, robert hum, yesterday was the first time ever that the s&p 500 has risen more than 1% on the inauguration day not a political statement.

we of course are seeing the end, hopefully, to this terrible pandemic relatively soon, and also talking about a nearly $2 trillion stimulus plan. so maybe not a surprise we have been so strong but either way, congratulations to our new president we wish you and of course the entire country, whatever your political stripe, and as you can say, as far as stocks go, the last few weeks has made number 46 number 1. random, and hopefully interesting. all right. when we come back, on deck, the new administration looking to ramp up vaccinations in the u.s. morgan stanley analyst matthew harrison is here to break down where we really stand in vaccinations and if you have not already, why not, subscribe to our new podcast on all the major podcast platforms there is forget about the picture don't worry about that subscribe anyway we're back dow futures up 30% stk ou sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly.

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. welcome back, and good morning. let's talk about something very important now, and that is the progress of the vaccine rollout. and the state of covid in the united states. for that, let's bring in once again, matthew harrison, analyst at morgan stanley. he and his team have been doing amazing work for the last number of months, tracking everything from cases to vaccinations to their prognosis. we're glad you're back on the program right now. thank you very much. a lot of debate right now about exactly where we stand i know everybody wants it to happen further, but in terms of a global list, the united states is actually the fifth best country in terms of vaccination as a percent of the population israel, uae, bahrain, the u.k., and then us. we've got to ramp it up a bit. where do you think we stand now, and where are we going on vaccinations >> brian, the good news is we're doing better if you go back about two weeks, we had been using the high 20% of all the vaccinations that had

been shipped had gotten into people's arms. as of yesterday, we're north of 50%. that number keeps going up, and i think the hope is that as we've expanded the number of people that are eligible, that that number can keep going up. we're headed in the right direction. obviously it's been a slow start, but i'm hopeful that we can get that number higher in the weeks to come. yeah, and listen, i know it's impossible to talk about this without sounding like, you know, we're being negligent on all the lives that are lost, and people that are suffering. that is certainly not the case, and any case is too many cases, but the reality is, matthew, we have seen some positive trends lately, have we not, as you've noted? the epidemic doubling pace has grown by about 30 days 144,000 cases two days ago, the second lowest number outside of christmas, and thanksgiving day. that's a testing issue since early november are we not seeing some positive

trends despite the tough headlines we're also still seeing >> the thing i watch the most, brian, is hospitalizations as you well pointed out, we have had a lot of holidays, even this past week, a lot of people had monday off and testing volumes were down. but if you look at hospitalizations, we have seen a recent peak in hospitalizations and so for me, that's at least a good near term sign we have to see if it continues. but i agree with you that it looks like we may be starting to plateau. >> the pandemic as you have noted, contracting in 45 states. still a lot of states like california where they have certainly a lot of problems. let's talk about the big issue, matthew, and that is of course the vaccines, and people, they want them now. i get it we all want it right now there's the lot of bottlenecks and people are confused. more doses are out there than have been administered where are the doses right now?

i know it's a state issue, but on a macro level, where do you think the vaccinations are going to go? can we ramp it up? >> yes, i think we can ramp it up so there are two issues, right, that you're talking about. one obviously is production, an production fortunately has generally been in line with what the companies have been guiding in terms of their ability to deliver doses. the second issue, as you pointed out, though, once they get shipped to the localities, converting those into people's arms have been slower than a lot of people hoped. as i noted earlier on, we have moved that rate up from about 25% to 50% over the last two weeks, so i think the hope is that that number can go higher in the near term, and then the third thing, which maybe we'll get to, but we may be able to help on the production side because there are a couple more vaccines that could read out in the next couple of weeks, and if they can be added to the list,

you could unlock an additional hundreds of millions of doses, which could obviously speed things up. >> and that is huge. and i understand there's the covid variants right now, b 117, but it sounds like the vaccinations, at least we believe should be effective against those. do you have a number, matthew, and i know we talk about herd immunity it's a misunderstood concept we want everyone who wants to be vaccinated to be vaccinated. you don't need the entire nation, and as an epidemiologist friend of mine actually said, every vaccination, there's two you vaccinate the person against getting sick, and vaccinate them from getting other people sick it's highly unlikely that they will be transmitters is there a number, a percentage of the population where you think it's not 100%. maybe 40% where you think things can really start to change for the better as far as a percentage of population vaccinated >> sure.

so in our modeling, what we have looked at is if we can vaccinate about 6% of the population consecutively for three months in times, we should be able to turn the number of new cases and have that start to head downward on a sustainable level now, when you ask about herd immunity, traditionally herd immunity is going to be 60 or 70% of the population, but you have to remember, probably somewhere between 10 or 20% of the population has already had covid, so that means if we can vaccinate, call it about 40% of the population, we should be in a good spot. >> and we're at about 5% right now. so matthew, i think you're giving a lot of people hope. 6% a month 20%, plus the people that have had it already people under 18 that will likely not get it or not need it as well maybe we're talking spring, right, matthew, we're not solved, we're not out of it, but we can see the end matthew harrison, morgan

stanley, great stuff appreciate your analysis a lot of hard work you're putting out. we appreciate it thank you, matt. on a positive note, we are getting there, and let's hope those numbers are right. that does it for "worldwide exchange." i'll be off far couple of days "squawk box" is up next. you have a great day we'll see you soon take care.

good morning, the biden administration hitting the ground running just an hour ago announcing ten new executive orders to fight the pandemic we'll take you live to washington china, testing the new administration, telecom companies there asking for a review of the order to delist their shares from the nyse, triggered by president trump and united airlines under pressure after the company offered a bleak outlook for the

near future. the ceo will join us in an exclusive interview, it's thursday, january 21st 2021 and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc o i'm becky quick, along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. the u.s. equity futures at this hour are indicated higher even after the big gains that we saw yesterday. yesterday was a big day for the markets. dow was up by about 0.8% the s&p was up by about 1.4% the nasdaq was the really big gainer, though, up by 2% all three of those major averages closing at highs. it didn't stop there you saw the russell 2000 and the dow transports hitting new highs as well, and for an inauguration day it was