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 a pretty big deal

typically on inauguration day, i don't know why, the market trades a little bit lower. not everybody market day is on a market trading day it's on january 20th, sometimes that's on a weekend. historically, markets have traded down on inauguration days yesterday clearly not the case yesterday was the first time that the s&p 500 rose more than 1% on an inauguration day. a little bit of history for you. check things out this morning. you're going to see right now there are green arrows across the board once again no major moves, but again, after closing at record highs, the dow futures is indicated up by 40%s, and here we go again with the nasdaq, up by 64 let's take a look at what's happening in the treasury market watching that closely for the last couple of weeks as we finally started to see movement on rates ten-year this morning is trading at 1.0089% a slightly lower yield. >> thanks, becky as joe mentioned at the top, president biden getting right to work yesterday the signed more than a dozen

executive actions soon after being sworn in about an hour ago his administration blooehas detailsf his plan including executive orders i want to get straight to eamon javers in washington >> good morning, andrew, we'll see president biden in the state dining room of the white house at about 2:00 p.m. this afternoon where he will sign an additional ten executive orders and executive actions, all relating to the covid response they're releasing their national strategy for responding to the covid virus, and the biden aides say privately that they have been really frustrated with what they saw from the trump administration during the transition they say the covid planning and vaccine rollout is much worse than they anticipated before the election, and they say they're trying to do some things here today to get their arms around that what is that going to look like? heer here's the details inside the ten executive orders, they're going to expand the vaccination process, testing and supplies,

and ppp. they're going to use the defense production act to do that if they have to one of the things we're going to see under this is fema opening federal vaccination centers. that's not something we have seen so far. they're also going to work, they say, with pharmacies around the country to make sure the vaccine gets out to the point at which people can get shots in their arms they're also going to have a plan for reopening schools, and day care centers biden says this is one of the keys to his covid response and economic responses getting those schools open within the first hundred days of his administration, and really putting the schools in a position to be able to do that safely they're also going to direct osha to develop standard covid safety guidelines for workplaces that they say is so important because we have seen a hodgepodge of responses as different workplaces have tried to figure this out on their own, different states have tried to figure this out on their own what the biden team is saying this is going to be a whole of government response, a very vigorous, national, federal level response in stark contrast

to what we saw from the trump administration which is deferring a lot of these decisions or all of these decisions down to the states and local areas. this is going to be the federal government stepping in they say a lot of it will be sort of modelled on what we saw in response to hurricane sandy, in terms of fema and local and state agencies working together from a federal, national, and local level. a lot coming up at 2:00 at the biden white house. >> let's just talk about the implications for using the defense product production act president trump did not want to use it president biden saying he will what kinds of companies do you imagine that they are going to be going to and saying, you are going to be manufacturing x, whether that be masks, whether that be gloves, whether that be other types of ppe or some of the materials required for testing and the like, what are we talking about here? >> yeah, it's a great question, and if you go through this fact

sheet, and some of the document that the biden team have released, which i have been doing, you don't see specific companies, but you do see specific copy areas, mostly around ppe the n95 masks, the gloves, the gowns, all of that the biden folks say it's shocking to them that we are almost a year into this, and we still don't have the ppp safety equipment that the american people need, and we still don't have the testing capability that people need. i think in those areas you're going to see the administration looking to use the defense production act, and remember, they don't have to order companies to manufacture things, but they can prioritize the federal purchases in the sort of queue, so to speak, at the companies, and say, you know, we're cutting in line in front of all of your other customers here, and we want to get this ppp for yourselves that's one of the things they can do if you look at it, it's going to be around that medical equipment area where they say they're

still woefully sthohort in termf ppp across the country. >> and the second follow up is the mention of schools and day care centers typically of course those have been controlled by the state, at the state level. how is that going to work because clearly there are some states that have decided to shutter their schools or decided to do them online for whatever reason are we going to be seeing, you know, battles flair up around the country about how to handle this >> you know, i don't think so. i mean, if you listen to what the biden team is saying, they're saying that they want to have -- they want to put the schools in a position to be able to safely reopen this isn't going to be, they say, a lecture from the white house saying open up or else, this is going to be how can we get you the materials you need to open up how can we make sure that your teachers in your area have the vaccinations they need to go back into the school buildings, the ppe that they need to make sure there's social distancing,

and a clean environment for people inside these schools. you know, they want to put, they say, the schools in a position to succeed here, and that includes lowering the overall amounts of the virus, and the environment around these schools so kids can get back to school, and parents can get back to work, and the economy can begin to resume something like normal. and they're hoping to do it within the first hundred days. >> i want to go back to the defense production act and the idea that it would be invoked for the government to cut the line, the federal government to cut the line and buy the ppe it sounds like a simple fix, but my guess is it's not it was a problem that the federal government didn't have the ppp ordered. it was a problem that the federal government not only wasn't procuring it, and wasn't giving it out. as a result you had states trying to get their own ppe, hospitals trying to get their own personal protective equipment, companies trying to get their own personal protective equipment, and they have done a decent job in a lot of places of doing just that

if the government now comes in and says we're cutting the line in front of the states, the hospitals, the companies, the private companies that have all done this, then what happens then everybody who has secured ppe and thinks they have their line of doing that now has to say, wait, i'm going to go to the federal government and wait in line and hope i get it there. it sounds like it's replacing one mess with potentially a bigger mess. who's the we who doesn't have it >> there's always unintended consequences when you do any of these things, and there is sort of this hodgepodge system that's dw developed. what the biden team is saying there's not enough ppe in the areas of greatest need what they're going to do is step in with the federal government and try to iron all of that out, and you're right, that might display people who have figured it out for themselves. when you have all the states bidding against each other, and scrambling to get this from suppliers, what you end up in is a bidding war to bid up the

prices and the states and communities that can afford to pay the highest prices are the ones that end up benefitting here one of the big themes in what biden is going to do today is equity they're talking about making sure that all communities get access to the vaccinations, to the ppe and all the supplies they need. talking about the racial disparity of the income of the covid virus, what you're going to see is an effort to make sure all americans are getting access to the equipment, not just those that work for a powerful company that can afford to buy the ppe or work in a community where the tax base is such that they're able to pay high prices for ppe in an emergency bidding war kind of a basis >> getting rid of the bidding war sound like a good idea if there's not enough to go around, simply saying we're going to cut in line, may not be enough they may need to invoke the production act enough to say you

all have to produce more or produce more of this and less of this other thing you're producing at the same time i'm just saying if there's not enough to go around, there's not enough to go around and cutting the line isn't going to do it. >> yeah, they may have to do that too >> eamon, thank you very much, eamon javers >> you bet. the single day death toll in the united states hit a new high of 4,400 people. new cases and hospitalizations are showing signs of leveling off in the last week after that post holiday surge president biden's new cdc director speaking out about the fight against the pandemic dr. rochelle walensky called for a rapid acceleration in covid testing. official will review current guidance issued under the trump administration and update if needed. meantime, in new york city, officials had to reschedule 23,000 vaccine appointments from this week because of a supply shortage the city has fewer than 90,000 first doses left, and will

reportedly hit zero by friday. we keep hearing in symptom places it's the supply on the shelf that's not making it out that's not the case in new york city. and arnold schwarzenegger has received the covid vaccine as well. the former california governor posted a video of the jab on twitter and encouraged others to get it as well at the end of the video, he said with his usual flourish, come with me if you want to live. joe. >> come with me if you want to live i guess that's from -- that's when he was a good guy. >> hasta la vista baby. >> that was when he was a good guy in the second one. he came back, there he is, the bad guy is the other guy with the ears, robert patrick because of his haircut, and he was like in a cop outfit remember. >> i do remember. >> i don't know what arnold was in the third one and then the fourth and fifth anyway, amazon is offering, meanwhile, the new administration help in its bid

to distribute covid vaccine. cnbc has learned that president biden received a letter from the company's ceo of worldwide consumer business saying that it's ready to leverage its operations to help the administration with its goal of vaccinating 100 million americans in the first 100 days of the administration. the offer comes as the company tries to get priority access to vaccines for its front line workers. troubling story from new york. i don't know if you don't have it, you can't use it, i guess. so logistically. >> we know there's a lot of different places along the line where there's a problem, getting it into the arms that last inch has been a problem if you're running out of supply, that's not a case where the states aren't giving everything. it's just we need more there's demand at least in some areas, pretty deep demand for wanting to get this vaccine. >> that was a drive through dispenser that we saw. >> i like that >> that i haven't seen. >> it's smart. it's a little cold here.

>> that's happening around the country. the big question, is you're going to start to see, and you're seeing it with amazon and others, big companies make the case that they should not only be prioritized to some degree, but also they should be the ones that ultimately do the distribution for their own employees, and they can do it quickly. for example, if you're walmart, ostensibly, you could get, you know, the jab in hundreds of thousands of arms, you know, literally in the course of a week if not sooner or an amazon or the like. i think you're going to start to see businesses make that case. the question of course is whether people are going to say they're jumping the line the question is should some of them jump the line you could look at some fof the folks out of walmart, amazon who has kept so much of the country moving, then the question is should they be prioritized, shouldn't they be prioritized, do they act as vectors unto themselves because they are in the community in a way others

aren't these are the hard questions folks are grappling with. >> whoever started to jump the line shaming, i think you got to error on the other side. everybody needs a jab. anybody that gets a jab be happy they got the jab you know, to stigmatize it like that, it doesn't surprise me given where we are in the world right now in terms of everyone pointing at everyone, wait a second, you, you, you, the whole cancel culture. >> you see the problems in new jersey we had governor murphy on. he was on shep smith, about half of the doses that have been allocated are sitting on the shelves because they are allocated from patients in nursing homes, with some of the biggest morbidity but they haven't been able to vaccinate in a timely manner it gets down to how quickly can you do this. do you want those sitting on the shelf. it's an argument that's going to

pop up again and again until you get more vaccinations out there. that's what we hope for. >> you break the chain of transmission, maybe it doesn't break it we don't have the science, people write in. why are we doing it if we don't have the science that you prevent the disease. >> you're protecting the people who get the shot, and people around them too. >> we are expecting additional science in the next week or two. we should have some of the results of tests that have been focused on just that and some of the trials when we come back, morgan stanley has a message for the new president, deficits still matter he will join us to make his case next right now as we head to a break. check out shares of citigroup. the bank will reportedly cut bonuses for top ecivexutes regulators reprimanded them last year for not properly managing we'll be right back.

welcome back, everybody. stocks closed at a record yesterday with the biden administration inheriting a full plate of policy challenges including pushing through another round of stimulus. for a closer look at what it all means for the markets, let's welcome rashir sharma, chief global strikeategist and head o emerging markets and author of

the book "the 10 rules of successful nations" and his latestpiece for the financial times "dear joe biden, deficits still matter," thank you for being here today let's talk about this. we know biden's administration number one goal is trying to attack covid, and also get some additional funds out there $1.9 trillion is the price tag that they're looking at right now. i'm guessing you think that's too much >> yeah, becky, i think that more than the exact price tag or the fact that they're putting more money to work, i'm much more concerned by the thinking as president biden himself said and the treasury secretary nominee janet yellen also said that because interest rates are so low, we can afford to spend big. i'm really concerned about that thinking, the thinking that all because interest rates are low, we can afford to keep piling on debt with no consequences and what i have been arguing for, and i did so in this financial

times op-ed again was the fact that we are already paying the price of this increasing culture of taking on nmore and more debt and deficits, by the fact that productive is getting lower and lower, with increased government involvement in the economy, with more and more bailouts, and also a lot of the money in terms of stimulus put out there, finds its way into financial assets as we know, rather than into the real economy, so two things that the rising deficit, and debt culture of the last few years have been already causing is widening economic equality, and that's obviously a much bigger concern. for me it's this basic worry that all because interest rates are very low, we think we can keep spending with no consequences the consequences are there, just not in plain sight. >> so basically this is an argument against mmt, modern

monetary theory that it's okay to keep doing this there is eventually going to be a price to pay for all of this, we're just not entirely sure when >> the point i'm making is we are already paying a price for it, which is why do we have lower and lower productive over the last ten, 15 years, despite the incredible tech boom why do we have a situation where the size of the financial economy today is four times larger than the size of the real economy compared to the 1980s when the financial economy and real economy were of the same size these policies of much more deficit spending, more debt, and the fed being more and more accommodative to carry on this debt binge, i think that is already having a consequence that's my basic point, most economists think the consequences in the future, when you get higher inflation, i'm saying wait a minute, we already have consequences of this, just not consequences that are that

visible. why do we have so many zombie companies in the world today, where even in companies in the united states, 20% of all companies that are listed can be classified as zombie companies that number is 2 or 3%, a few decades ago. this culture of bailouts, of constantly helping increase government involvement anytime -- >> let me get beyond that point. there's so much you're saying here that's so interesting, but let me stop you on that one point to say that 20% of the s&p 500 are zombie companies would you put a company like united airlines, any of the airlines that aren't getting basis because of the covid shut down these are not zombie companies that are kept alive forever, these are zombie companies we're trying to hold up and get back to the point where we're more normal, and hopefully on the path with the vaccinations rolling out now. hopefully we'll get back to a more normal life quickly, and those companies with recover and do what they have done before.

>> firstly, who's defining zombie companies a zombie company is defined by institutions as companies that don't even own enough interest from the profits, right, for three years in a urow. this is not just a one off this is for companies that are doing it systematically, and my point is that number has increased in a straight line from the 1980s or so from a low of 2 or 3% to 20%. every crisis can be justified for having more intervention, for this to be temporary the problem is it doesn't stop once the crisis is oever, these interventions, these lifelines seem to continue forever, which is why the number of start ups in the economy is declining. it's not just about the pandemic it's this culture of constant intervention, even in good times, not just the bad times. >> i think the argument would be in bad times at least that you

don't want to create that scarring and lose companies that would otherwise be there, but your point about continuing for too long is a fair one i think the point you make that's maybe the most interesting and the point that maybe biden and yellen and others might and should listen to is the idea that you think it is fostering inequality, that it's creating more inequality that they are saying they're trying to battle at this point again, you say that because of the way it inflates asset bubbles, the wealthy get wealthier, under situations like this right? >> yeah, that's what's happened in terms of owners of stocks and bonds in the united states and around the world, those get inflated so our entire focus is that, oh, as long as consumer price or less, it's fine, but we don't take into account, asset price inflation. if you have massive asset price inflation, what does that mean it leads to widening income

inequality, and whenever the asset inflation busts, the consequences for the economy are dire like we saw in 2008, but the main point, as you point out, is the fact that we tend to ignore the consequences of asset price inflation because we're so narrowly focused on consumer price inflation, where this entire monetary growth and all the prints we have done has led to asset price inflation the fact that the size of the financial economy is four times larger than the size of the real economy. every wiggle in the stock market or bond markets get this inordinate amount of policy attention, i think that's a problem, and that is something which is against the average person. >> hmm i have about 20 more questions, but we have no more time we'll have you back. thanks for joining us this morning. >> thanks, becky coming up on the other side of the break, a test from the biden administration from china, telecom companies there challenging the delist order

from president trump we'll bring you the details next. as we head to the break, here's a look at the s&p 500 gainers, gm up over 35% so far we're right back ch -- after this sales are down from last quarter but we are hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uh... doug? sorry about that. umm... what...its...um... you alright? [sigh] [ding] never settle with power e*trade. it has powerful, easy-to-use tools to help you find opportunities, 24/7 support when you need answers plus some of the lowest options and futures contract prices around. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today.

(vo) businesses are always making choices. here's a choice you don't have to make: the largest 5g network... award-winning customer satisfaction... or insanely great value. now, with t-mobile for business, there's no compromise. network. support. value. choose. all. three. t-mobile for business. ready when you are. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now

you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning the executive edge right now china's three biggest telecom companies have reportedly asked for a review of the decision by the new york stock exchange to delist their shares. this is according to bloomberg, in filings in hong kong. china mobile, china unicome, china telecom have appealed the decision, issued by an executive order by former president trump. the move is an early test for the biden administration we'll see how long it takes to hear whether they react and how they react joe. >> thanks, andrew. coming up, president biden's plan to tackle the wealth gap in

america. robert frank joins us next with a special report and we'll get reaction from jack lew, former treasury secretary, and also chief of staff to president obama. as we head to break, here's a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't.

let's take care of business. at&t. 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

president biden taking wealt history.e of the largest a major challenge for his administration will be figuring out how to close it. easier said than done, robert frank. i know one way robert frank joins us with more. just bring down that top, baby bring it down, bring it down let's meet in the middle hopefully not. >> yeah, there's going to be calls for that, joe. that's because the top 1% actually added $5 trillion do their collective wealth just in the first three quarters of 2020 that is by far a record. add to that the stock market gains of the fourth quarter and into this year, biden will

likely inherit the largest wealth gap in recent history the 1%ers control 31% of the nation's wealth, more than the bottom 90% america's billionaires, they have done the best, adding nearly a trillion dollars to their wealth since covid started. 56 new billionaires created just last year, and of course the biggest driver of all of this is stocks and financial assets. the value of corporate equities and mutual funds shares growing by $4 trillion in the last three quarters of 2020 so 4/5 of the gain by the top 1% last year in terms of wealth all came from stocks and corporate equities now as you mentioned, jooie biden's challenge is he needs low interest rates and fiscal spending for his policies. those are the same forces expanding the wealth gap, and it really adds all of this pressure to calls from the left side, the democrats to raise taxes, which are likely in this second phase

of the biden plan. >> robert, thank you we've got a special guest for more on how president biden will attempt to attack income inequality in his tax agenda, we're joined by lindsay goldberg partner jack lew served as chief of staff of president barack obama. secretary, it's good to see you. you were on the letter signed by every living former treasury secretary to quickly confirm janet yellen notice that. what do you think the priority for secretary yellen should be in terms of advice because she did say go big but maybe not immediately with the tax increases. >> it's good to be with you this morning, joe i think the letter reflected the broad consensus that we're this a time of emergency. we're in a time where the health

crisis and the economic crisis continue to need all hands on deck, which is why it's rather unusual that you had that bipartisan letter which i was just delighted to join with counter parts from most of my adult life, republican and democratic administrations i think clearly dealing with a health crisis, and the economic fallout from it is critical. i think the plan that president biden laid out is the right plan but i think it's also right that he made clear that he's looking to do this on a bipartisan basis, and he wants to work with congress, and that means with democrats and republicans. i think laying out what it takes to have a national plan in place, to deal with the health crisis is critical because the economy can't fully come back without the health crisis, and the vaccination program truly working. i think if you look at where the needs are, they're still pretty widespread and as the piece you

did just before our conversation made clear, you have to think about different parts of the income spectrum a little differently. you know, the upper end is doing okay gdp will do better on average than it does for people in the middle and the bottom because there's such concentration at the top. we have to worry about people who aren't going to bounce back, and that means people in low and middle income jobs who are going to have a harder time getting back to work, who if they lose their homes will be set back not a year but a decade or more in terms of their stability, and we need to worry about the state and local governments and the schools, and the institutions that if they lay people off will deny services and hurt the economy. i think his program was right. now, there is no magic number as the, you know, new white house team said yesterday, they built it up from what economy needs to a number, not backwards to fill up

i hope there's a serious conversation about how to go forward in the next weeks to deal with that beyond that there's a need for an economic growth program, and that comes in phase two. >> mr. secretary, we're still in it, i don't know if you would characterize it as an investing phrase we're still going to be spending eventually there comes a day where you start trying to figure out your finances and what to do and that's where i'm talking about whether we, you know, get rid of the tax cuts from the trump administration just to make a point to you, if corporate taxation was never more -- it was always less than 10% of the total, is that the place to go? i mean, to keep our corporations competitive globally, that gives us an advantage because they might be able to hire more people and compete better. why not do it with individuals if you think there are individuals that have done too well, or too much has accrued to them, why not do it with the tax rate in that case, and not necessarily, you know, back up

the corporate tax to 27. would you advise that or you think we need to do corporate taxes as well as individual? >> joe, i think you have to look at the investment program in two phases as wellment th there's going to be a piece that's part of the recovery, like infrastructure spending i think it's urgent and an emergency, and there's some of that that you won't need to pay for. you don't have to wait until you can get a consensus on how to pay for things to take beginning of the next step: i think if you look at the full, permanent investment program and infrastructure in child care, in education and community colleges, all of the things we need to really create opportunity for the people who are being left behind by the economy that's producing the income inequality, i think ultimately we will have to pay for that, and i think as a candidate joe biden said that, and that will mean having some new revenues

on the corporate tax side, let's remember that the 21% rate came out of the air it was not something ceos were asking me for. when i was at treasury they were asking me for a 25% raise. there's a good distance from where we are now, and where we should be. i think 27, 28% is fine. there's space between that and 25 to raise revenue without hurting the american economy or corporate america. i also think there are taxes on the upper income that could be raised without hurting the economy. so i think there's a fair amount that can be done to pay for the investments that we need to reduce inequality in the country. that's the challenge ahead, and the question is what can we agree to to go forward hopefully on a bipartisan basis to do that >> we always try and balance growth in the economy with, you know, trying to balance what we spend, and do you at least agree

in the position we are in right now, you wouldn't, i think, the future secretary yellen said this is now not the right time to look at the revenue enhancers. would you agree with that to wait until next year maybe >> i think there's two questions, one is when do you agree on the policy, the second is when do they take effect. i think it's going to take a little time for the full investment program to come together i think that there's also ways to design revenue increases so that they don't hurt the economy at a time when kryou're still bouncing back from the pandemic led recession. so i think we have to have this conversation the list of tax options is not news to anyone it's well known by policy makers on both sides. i think the question candidly is are we committed to investing in reducing inequality in an effective bipartisan way that will be lasting and, will we will able to agree on how to pay for that in a way that also

reduces inequality. >> mr. secretary, if you accept the premise of robert frank's piece that low rates and fed intervention increases asset values, which exacerbates income inequality, that's not necessarily going to do it what is going to do it is growth we started to see growth in wages before the pandemic hit. you started to see some organic clo closing of the wealth gap. you don't want to close the wealth gap by bringing down the top. >> we have to be honest, economic growth, the rising tide is not lifted all boats equally. we haven't seen wages growing at the lower and middle level as quickly as they should you know, there's going to be a debate about minimum wage policy you cannot live in most of the country at a decent middle class

level, earning less than $15 an hour if people work 40 hours a week, they ought to be able to not live in poverty. we have to figure out how to solve the problem. we need economic growth. i would just point out in the years after we return to higher tax rate on the top income level and after we restored some taxes on corporations, we saw more, not less economic growth in the experience of the clinton and obama administrations in which i served so there's actually facts that drive the position that we can strike that balance to get economic growth and reduce inequality i think we have to worry about deficits and i think if we want to talk about that, taxes are part of it. >> we coined the term alternative facts in the last administration, i have some alternative facts on what helped in past administrations, too

as you know, secretary, because you have been on a lot but it's great to have you on, and it's, you know, something that as a country we need to figure this out and deal with it and, you know, we're all about unity now, and i think we've demonstrated some of that right now, mr. secretary. >> and i think we have a president who to his core believes in that which is something we should be very grateful for. >> and we do too secretary lew, thank you. >> have a good day stay safe. >> you too thanks kw who's next, becky. >> how did you like garth brooks yesterday, like preacher brooks, calling for unity too. when we come back, we'll check out shares of united airlines, ahead of the interview with the ceo that stock is down 2.1%. lots to go over. and don't miss o ierewurntvi with barry sternlicht for his take on the markets with president biden. stick around, "squawk box" will be right back. currency check is sponsored

by interactive brokers, investment management with lower costs and higher returns pr labradoodles, cronuts, skorts.

(it's a skirt... and shorts) the world loves a hybrid. so do businesses. so, today they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach lets them use watson ai to modernize without rebuilding, and bring all their partners and customers together in one place. that's why businesses from retail to banking are going with a smarter hybrid cloud using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. at carvana, no matter what car you buy from us, you get the freedom of the seven-day return policy. this isn't some dealership test drive around the block. it's better. this is seven days to put your carvana car to the test and see if it fits your life. load it up with a week's worth of groceries. take the kiddos out for ice cream. check that is has enough wiggle room in your garage.

you get the time to make sure you love it. and on the sixth day, we'll reach out and make sure everything's amazing. if so, excellent. if not, swap it out for another, or return it for a refund. it's that simple. because at carvana, your car happiness is what makes us happy.

. welcome back to "squawk box. shares of united airlines, they are lower this morning the company swung to a net loss of $1.4 billion, up from a $641 million profit a year earlier. revenue falling 69%. missing analyst estimates, the near term guidance was pretty bleak already. united says first quarter revenue will likely come in 65 to 75% below 2019 levels but longer term, united said it expects to surpass pre-pandemic margins by 2023. we're going to dig through the numbers with the ceo of that company, scott kirby, he's going to join us in an exclusive at 8:00 a.m. eastern time this morning. when we come back, a conversation about cracking down on big tech with the new administration means for these big companies and their influence, and of course section 230. that debate right after the break.

♪ write your next adventure. handwriting recognition and the audi q3. lease or purchase a new audi suv and have your first month's payment covered.

welcome back to "squawk box. we are talking about cracking down on big tech's influence joining us to talk about what's next for the industry, sarah fischer, axios media reporter and joanne at the institute for advanced study, cnbc contributor as well. sarah, you're a washington denzine at this point. help us understand, how you think, for example, 230 will be addressed, if it will at all, in a different way, in the same way, in a more stringent way or aggressive way under a biden administration >> they're going to be under more pressure after the capitol siege. so we know the biden administration cares a lot about it remember, biden also said that he personally thinks we should revoke the law

now president trump who had a wavering stance and said we should revoke it held this position, but what's different is that the biden administration, you can imagine with a democratic majority in the house and now in the senate is going to heed that call from biden much more than you would hear in the trump administration the problem though, andrew, when it comes to section 230 is that while there's bipartisan consensus we need to tackle it, there is no consensus about what we would replace it with i think everyone saying if we just remove it, it would leave us with something our economy or national security isn't ready for. >> joanne, we talk about section 230 and this idea of liability protection, no liability protection

we rarely talk about how to enforce it or how the companies could transition to how they could control what kind of language appears on their s systems given the rapidity of the content. we talk about editors. could it work in practice? i'm curious whether you think between ai and everything else whether this is a real conversation or whether this is something that's actually impractical? >> thanks, andrew. i actually do think this is practical, more practical now than it was four years ago, than it ever has been before. you know, the reason for this is we have been hearing for years from the tech firms that they are completely unable to do anything about this fire hose of content and that's why they needed this section 230 protection, liability protection, because it was just too much it was too massive but the fact is look what's happened just in the last couple of months where the tech firms really have aggressively cracked down on misinformation around the election, around covid

they flagged the information and there's a couple of really important points here and one is, first of all, they are acting as an editor, as a publisher of information by choosing and making these value judgments for the rest of us that's, yeah, one issue. the second is, look, they're proving that also they have the ability to do this the technology is just exploding in terms of artificial intelligence, in terms of what we are able to do with it, so my guess is i would agree, it seems very unlikely despite what biden has said that they would actually revoke section 230 altogether that would just cause a huge chaos, morass, but i would be -- i would actually expect to see some reforms and at the end of the day my assumption, my guess would be that the tech platforms are going to end up looking a lot closer, at least a little closer, to traditional

publishers where they do have some responsibility for the content that they publish. >> right sarah, real quick before we let you go in terms of breaking up these companies, antitrust enforcement, what kind of person do you expect to be put into the role and how aggressive do you anticipate they might be >> makan delarahim was focused on content he brought investors into media mergers that i was completely surprised to see i think the replacement is going to be somebody who has experience with antitrust in the private sector merrick garland in the ag position once concerned is has that experience and that will bring a lot of credibility to the lawsuit against google the ftc is something to watch. it's had a republican majority we expect it to have a

democratic majority which might mean they'll take a much more aggressive view on privacy the ftc is looking into facebook as well as amazon. >> okay. sarah and joanne, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thanks. >> appreciate it very, very much as always. joe? >> thanks, andrew. coming up, influential tesla analyst adam jonas of morgan stanley will be with us. he'll give us his topic in the sector here's a hint, it's not tesla. shares of united are down 2% after offering a bleak near term outlook. ceo scott keish kirby will join 8 a.m. we're coming 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. hello. [all] hey... there he is. workday, the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪ch-ch-changes♪

before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new? -well, audrey's expecting... -twins! grandparents! we want to put money aside for them, so...change in plans. alright, let's see what we can adjust. ♪♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. okay. mom, are you painting again? you could sell these. lemme guess, change in plans? at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan.

. president joe biden officially taking office and waitsi wasting no time getting down to work this morning announcing details to battle the pandemic we have the details and the market reaction straight ahead stocks hitting a record high across the board on inauguration day. what you need to watch ahead of the opening bell is coming up. plus, a closer look at the red hot auto sector. should investors pump the brakes here or put the pedal to the medal. we'll find out as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now.

good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. u.s. equities 2 1/2 hours before it opens it would do so 100 points higher and the s&p 50011 points higher and nasdaq 67 points higher. headlines at this point, 11 por and nasdaq 67 points higher. headlines at this point, travelers is well above the consensus estimate of $3.18. the results were boosted by fewer claims and a record 8.34% in premium rates for renewing their policies that stock we'll call it flat. it's marginally down on that news they're set to confirm the nomination of janet yellen at a meeting that happens tomorrow. it raises the possibility yellen could be confirmed by the full

senate tomorrow as well. volatile trading in bitcoin this morning, down 10% or more at certain points this morning. bitcoin was as high, as you might remember, at $42,000 earlier this momnth. down about $10,000 this morning off call it 8% down to about $32,282 so we talked about how wild the swings have been it has been on a wild ride up and we'll see if there's a floor here joe? >> yes always is a floor, right just scares -- >> well, you -- the other thing that -- >> scares you what the flight be. >> you can't fall off the floor. whenever things are going badly, i would say to myself, you can't fall off the floor. >> trap door trap door. hidden trap door or one of those -- remember when you were a kid when you'd dig a hole because you're going to catch a rabbit not your rabbit, i know you have a nice bunny

you put spikes in, grass over the top of it, you think you're going to actually -- never works. you never really catch anything but there could be a false floor. >> sounds fun. >> you didn't do that out in the woods? >> kyle's got one right now in the back. >> what happened with your childhood, andrew? let me ask you this. did you ever put a box up with a stick and a carrot on a string tied to the box and they go in and pull the stick out -- >> we did that a few months ago. doesn't work >> you know what -- >> especially not when you're hiding around the corner. >> i'm glad you're here. i used to do the things with the cup as a telephone and a string. >> okay, yeah. >> idid that >> some things. >> okay. okay, good >> i grew up -- i was a little bit of a city boy, you have to remember. >> city boy. city boy, city boy. >> not growing up you weren't? >> well, no, when i was young -- when i was very young that's where i was, yeah. there wasn't as much of this stuff. we've got stuff to do.

>> after the guy in the u.k. said that you can lose all your money, that was what i was getting to i mean, who knows with some things so i don't know what the floor on bitcoin -- i have no idea markets hitting record highs on inauguration day strong corporate earnings driving the move futures are higher this morning. dom chu, wow, it's early what a pleasure, dom usually don't see you until the 8:00 hour. what's moving this morning >> well, first of all, your conversation got me thinking, guys, about the fact that every squirrel that's around my yard is too smart to go into any of the traps that i set for those guys out there, even with the peanut butter and everything else anyway, it's not just the earnings, joe, becky, andrew, we've got a busy week of earnings premarket is tied to analyst changes. 10,000 shares of volume, thereabouts. the online retail cloud computing giant is a top long-term pick by analysts over bank of america. even with the strong performance they think amazon will benefit

as more consumers turn to ecommerce in the wake of the pandemic and beyond and they use cloud computing capacity the target price goes up to $4,000 a share from 36.50. it's $32.78 premarket. then you have shares of paypal roughly 20,000 shares of volume. the payments processor and fin tech gets updated from buy to neutral over at btig the new price is 300 bucks a share. they think the trend towards more digital changes usage because of the pandemic is here to stay. the long-term growth got more attractive like you were talking about before with the introduction of cryptocurrency transactions on its platform shares up 1.5% end on shares of under armour, the class a voting stock up about 1.5% this morning. helped by analysts of deutsche bank it was raised from a buy to a hold they cited the expectation for better profit margins,

improvement in key product lines like their running shoes and the steph curry brand overall. becky, three green ones on a day when the markets are coming off record highs i'll send things back over to you. >> yeah. the dow has picked up ground, too. when we started the show about an hour ago we were looking at the market up, the dow up by 40 points, it's up by 102 points in the premarket. thank you, dom. >> you've got it. president biden releasing details of his covid-19 plan including 10 executive orders. meg tirrell joins us with that and what we've learned about the virus after one year of this pandemic meg, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, becky. a lot of news today on what the biden administration will do those ten executive orders include using the defense production act to increase supplies of ppe vaccines, testing supplies, reimbursing states for more use of personnel including from the national guard, focusing on testing, developing more medicines, better using data creating a

health equity task force, directing hhs and the department of education to create guidance for better opening schools and providing the resources for schools to do so this is a long list of things we expect to hear about from the biden administration today guys, it comes, of course, literally one year to the day since the cdc announced the first case of covid on u.s. soil that was january 21st, 2020, and this was before it was even called covid it was 2019 novel coronavirus at that time. since then, of course, the country has recorded 24 million cases and they have just started accelerating over the last few months i reached out to ten experts across public health, medicine, industry, business for their reflections on the year behind us and the lessons they learned. dr. paul offed saying it's not the winter respiratory virus it was built to be. it is much more far reaching and dangerous than that.

guys, but in that year, of course, we've also seen the rapid development of medicines and vaccines we now have two medicines on the market for early disease and antibody drugs from regeneron and eli lilly. got three medicines from dexamethasone to gilead's remdesivir and another one from eli lilly. the two vaccines on the market, three morphology in phase 3 trials but those reflections from these experts really focusing on both what we've learned from the virus itself, remember at the beginning we were all wiping down our groceries because we thought this spread by droplets, spread like the flu. the realization that this could spread through the air and how much of it is asymptomatic, many experts pointed to as really important, as well as of course the politization of public health and the leadership from the national level scott gottleib telling us the importance of public/private partnership and focusing on the failures of testing in the early

stages saying the refusal of cdc to pivot to engage commercial labs and test kits led us blind to the early spread. he said it was a historic failure. on a brighter note, a lot of experts pointed to the miracle of two vaccines. it showed if we put the funding into science, we can do this quickly. >> the scientific advances have been absolutely amazing, meg clearly we continue to have some stumbles and some tricky points as we try to figure out how to get those vaccinations into everybody's arms let's talk through a few things. first of all, the biden administration saying that they are now concerned, we're hearing from reports, that things could be spiraling out of control, that we're not getting the vaccines out quickly enough, there are new strains developing how much faith should we put in a diagnosis like that versus the idea we have these vaccines, can we get it up more quickly? what do you think? >> well, everybody i talk to is

concerned about these new variants that we are seeing in the united states, particularly the one associated with the u.k. the cdc coming out expecting that could be the dominant strain in march. i talked to mike osterholm who agrees this poses a real problem. it emphasizes how we need to do the vaccinations more quickly. we've been hearing the biden team is concerned about the plan that is left in place. i am very eager to get to hear from them as they have said they are going to get in there and get an inventory of what the situation is, where all the dose red wings and start to give more clear guidance that is something we've heard from states and hospitals. we need to know where they are and they can plan. in new york city thousands of people are getting their appointments canceled because they ran out of vaccines better planning and better use of data we'll be eager to hear from the team how they plan to manage that. >> i think that's a huge concern. the new york city issue where

they're running out of it versus new jersey where they have hundreds of thousands of doses that are sitting on the shelf because they're waiting. they have been guaranteed to people who are going to be vaccinated in nursing homes, which you understand you want them vaccinated first. if that's the case, let's do this it's so frustrating to hear of doses sitting on the shelf at the same time it's so frustrating to hear that these people who thought they were going to get doses aren't going to get them and their appointments are being canceled. is that what it takes, just better coordination on a federal level for this >> so much of this is logistics. as we were covering operation warp speed and the incredible pace of the vaccines that was one fete in itself. we've heard the phrase the last mile so many times now we are seeing just absolutely how important that is one of the interesting things that the biden team lays out here in its plan is to establish a contact for every state to be talking with their covid

response team. covid response liaisons a model based on the response to hurricane sandy. from the conversations i've had with health leaders at the hospital level, at the -- in the state offices, they're just trying to figure out who to talk to at hhs. sometimes they said they didn't know who to get an answer from and so having that direct communication, knowing who your person is, the covid response to the federal level when you're getting offered more resources, there's a hope that will speed things up and straighten out all of these bumps we've been hearing about in this last mile. >> meg, thank you. always a wealth of information we appreciate it and we'll talk to you soon. >> thanks. when we come back, the auto stocks hitting top speed to kick off the new year we're going to talk about what's driving this move right after this break in the meantime, check out shares of ford jumping nearly 5% after deutsche bank said that it is bullish on

the company's upcoming earnings report deutsche bank says that it's a short-term buy call and its long-term hold rating on the stock remains. yeah i don't know if you heard brian sullivan talking about the best performing s&p this year general motors come as a surprise we'll talk about all of this when "squawk box" comes right back it's either the assurance of a 165-point certification process. or it isn't. it's either testing an array of advanced safety systems. or it isn't. it's either the peace of mind of a standard unlimited mileage warranty. or it isn't. for those who never settle, it's either mercedes-benz certified pre-owned. or it isn't. the mercedes-benz certified pre-owned sales event. now through march 1st. shop online or drop by your local dealer today.

welcome back to "squawk box. auto stocks are revving into high gear so far in 2021 gm, ford, tesla, all up more than 20% while newly formed stellantis up 8% this while tech big wigs like facebook and apple have been flat general motors is called the auto story of the year for that story, adam jonas is here, head of global autos at morgan stanley good morning to you. >> good morning. >> it has been wild in some ways to watch gm stock rise the way it has make the case. explain what's happening here -- >> sure. >> -- and is this going to be the case not just for gm but for all of the automakers that are going to somehow follow tesla? >> first, andrew, isn't it great

to be on cnbc and talk about another auto company besides tesla? that in itself is incredible look, i'm just going to go out and say it what mary barra and the team are doing at gm and, look, there's still room to go, but what they're doing may be -- may end up being one of the most profound strategic turn arounds not just in the auto industry but in business, okay? if you look at the arc of mary barra's career at gm, ceo since 2014, they've exited europe, they purchased crude which was a real cultural transformation they got it for barely a billion toll lars. they restructured the operations exiting internal combustion. they did the tie up with microsoft, honda they built a battery company called ultene with lg and it goes on and on what the most exciting part about it, andrew, is that our

clients still don't quite believe it yet and in our opinion the best is yet to come. so we're going to see some things that i think are going to shock people and rerate this company. it may not come from the auto industry investors, it's going to come from esg and tech investors. that's where we think the story of 2021. how ironic, mary and the team, the industry can thank elon musk in ways for waking them up and putting that urgency there gm's management team is scared in a good way, bless them, and they are not letting up. that's the story it's management and leadership >> adam, i think part of a question is perhaps you can make the argument that at gm, a ford, we can talk about the other oems and how you think about them in terms of being under valued, but then do you say to yourself tesla on the other side over va valued because i think arguably nobody

would say tesla is being valued as a strict automobile company >> right i think you have two things at once, andrew first, the stock market clearly is paying an enormous premium for innovation right now and, you know, you can debate the valuation all day long the program has. it's very difficult and entertaining, but find a more innovative company in the world than tesla touching an addressable market and it affects our plan so the market is glomming on to that and seemingly giving them a lot of credit. on the flip side what we think gm has realized and investors have realized, this internal combustion or ice, melting ice cube, de-adoption of tailpipes is not going to be gradual, it is going to be traumatic comparisons to the coal industry are very relevant in our opinion. we are hearing investors start

to equate internal combustion cars with asbestos and toxic tort not so much that they are illegal to sell but that they carry a potentially unlimited environmental liability and i think as more and more legacy automaker management teams wake up to that, they realize that as one investor described, having an internal combustion engine company create an ev business is like planting a delicate orchid in a radioactive forest. it might look pretty for a little bit it's destined to fail. so creating that separation so that the flower can grow that's what i think we're seeing at gm and i think once gm does it, you're going to see the dam break. >> so, adam, from a multiplist persp perspective, when you look at them on a fundamental basis, look at their earnings, next year, the year after, the year after and you put a multiple on

it, what do you think those numbers look like? and how do they change when you think about the old engine versus the battery world >> well, it would encourage investors to divide up a general motors, for example, into the ice, the internal co, the networking company, autonomous company. we think the value is in the network, the data, the partnerships to be able to charge rent and viewing the car instead of unit by price, view it in a different way if they can partner with players like microsoft, uber, fill in the blank because gm's making some interesting tools that give them an ability to charge rent while at the same time mitigating the risk and containing the liability of the ice at the same time what we think that will do is it will rerate. the rerating will be more powerful than the earnings

let's face it, andrew, even if u.s. auto sales are great for the next two or three years because of stimulus, my clients aren't going to give a crap no matter how high the multiples are. on the other side for tesla, people are solving for the cap and getting 150% of the market share of autos that, of course, is insane the story is in stone base, arpu, regularly occurring revenues some are 100% revenue businesses. >> adam, we've got to have you back so much to talk about in this space. i want to talk about space, actually, and virgin galactic. >> bring it on. >> come on back, we'll continue this conversation. i appreciate it very, very much. >> we'll do. >> great to see you. >> take care. >> does he have brothers, you know, andrew do you know if he has siblings do you know? >> i don't think it's that jones. i don't think so.

>> does he have brothers if you were talking to him, could you say, how are the jonas brothers could you say that to him? do you know? >> you could. >> i don't know. >> i don't know. >> i don't. >> i want to know. i want to know coming up, intel ready to report earnings tonight and the company is getting ready for a new ceo can a leadership change help right the ship and get intel back to the top of the chip hill then later starwood capital group barry sternlicht joins us. he's a spac maven. "squawk box" will be right back. time now for aflac trivia question the first civilian jeep product was launched in what year? x"on wn bcsqwk "ua bo ctinues for me? coach saban... i crutched out to the mailbox and there it was - a medical bill for twelve-hundred dollars. i had no idea i'd have to pay that. that's right. it's hard to know exactly what your health insurance is going to cover,

so you gotta protect your blind side. aflac! aflac pays you money directly to help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. really? aflac. get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. get to know us at aflac.com. (vo) with t-mobile for business, your business has an easy choice. gethe largest 5g network...th insurance doesn't cover. award-winning customer satisfaction... insanely great value. choose. all. three. ready when you are.

now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. the first civilian jeep product was launched in what year? the answer, 1945 the willys jeep was the world's first mass-produced civilian four-wheel drive vehicle >> okay.

intel reports earnings today as a critical moment for the chip giant a series of fumbles have left the company reeling and a new ceo will take the reins in four weeks. the question is can intel return to its former glory? jon fort weighs in it's weird, john intel was one company i didn't think would be subject to being displaced, like we've seen so many other companies i thought intel had the guts and the core and would be there. >> joe, intel's done intel's toast. the reason why, it don't change soon enough. the company has made a lot of money designing and manufacturing the brains on the personal computer, x 86 architecture was the gold standard instead of evolving based on the company's real strengths, the brilliance of the engineers and driven by a deep understanding of customers, intel got stuck chasing too many fads and dedicating too little attention

to what it does best chip design and precision manufacturing at scale in the meantime, two companies intel used to beat all the time, n nvidia and amd. >> some new things on the other hand. return to glory. >> that's exactly the theory in microsoft's case it was

it's a software customization. and the challenge has been given. it's a few years software customization so as we are aware >> he knows a lot about it >> okay. >> it's a high bar >> it's a high bar it's a high bar.

>> it's new blood. they were looking to bring somebody in the auto industry. >> my point. it's what i remember there's a waiver

it's made out of a certain size. the margins and profitability. >> the inflection points >> they are more vulnerable to assault. for microsoft, they have this real position and operating positions and microsoft has to write it to windows. if you have 2.0, you can write applications.

>> it's a combination of those >> thursdays five more minutes. >> have to resort to this. starwood capitol's barry sternlicht we'll talk to him about the spacs and the markets. we'll be right back. our retirement plan with voya, keeps us moving forward. hey, kevin! hey, guys! they have customized solutions to help our family's special needs... graduation selfie! well done! and voya stays by our side, keeping us on track for retirement... giving us confidence in our future ...and in kevin's.

you ready for your first day on the job? i was born ready. go get'em, kev. well planned. well invested. well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement. 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. hello. [all] hey... there he is. workday, the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪ch-ch-changes♪

>> serve the spacs so many spacs now.

>> private equity. disciplined. my screening. it's the first spac so it will grow as a mode, a reason. 253 car companies. three people your battery is worth $15 billion.

a lot of these companies won't be here. i don't have any idea where this battery technology works in its euphoria. i think it will be bigger in five years, they have a reason for living, they have competitive margins. you don't actually have to make money, but you have to have a path to profitability and you have to believe that the margins and the company won't have to continue to access the capitol markets forever just to meet its growth because all of those companies, those 253 auto companies, they just went bankrupt when they lost access to the markets, they just disappeared like a venture business, typically even the best venture

firms might have three, four winners in a portfolio of eight losers you'll have the same thing in spac land. you'll have a bunch of spacs that are real companies and no den know grace to the word spac. the issue is the sponsor, promoter, how the projections that you're allowed to use, how responsible they are because the markets are really in the believe you stage. they are just saying, okay, this is going to work it's going to be fantastic there's no valuation metrics you can use for some of these companies. people say i have heard other people say this time it's different because we're making real things. that's hard wire it's just crazy. of course they're making things but is it relevant can you make it a price that's competitive? does anyone need this? the valuations are the question. not the company. some of the companies are really solid companies but others really aren't competitively positioned well. the market is not distinguishing now. it is fun time in the stock market and the other thing i was going to mention is the social

media is talked about all the time in how it affects the election, the editing. the social media now is applying itself to the stock market you have reddit raids on short squeezes you have people talking about the dark underside of this market is kids, and i don't know if they're kids because we call them kids because we think they're less experienced, staying at home and day trading and buying stocks and i keep reminding myu yuongins, the nasdaq did go down it feels like 1999 to me i think people should exercise caution and be careful not to be so levered long to this equity market right now >> barry, this is why i love you. even as you're raising money for a spac, you have no qualms about saying there are a lot of really bad spacs out there, things happening that you don't think are kosher and that people should be buyer beware in these situations i feel like you're always

incredibly straightforward with us with this when you start looking at the things that concern you and making comparisons to 1999, doing things like that, what are you kind of keeping your eye on? because obviously nobody rings a bell at the top but there are warning signals along the way. how many warning signals have you seen so far? >> i was hoping joe would ring a bell for us or andrew. i think yellen's -- let's talk about the election a little bit and the economy. the economy, i was reading a comment by seth carmen this morning, you can't tell how the economy is doing when it's on steroids, which is the fed easings and all of these stimulus packages. while i absolutely think we needed a package, yellen said go big, don't go at all go big because rates are low i think that's really irresponsible. a lot of these programs are overlapping each other and it's just too much. you have to be much more targeted now about what's the real problem and who needs help. so, for example, the ppp program

helps businesses it's supposed to go originally to the employees then we have unemployment benefits and additional benefits on top of the normal benefits. then we have $2,000 checks and eviction moratoriums we have apartments where they're not getpaying rent, getting che and day trading and buying apple products you can't just hand out money and assume that business is going to get back to normal or people get trained for the jobs that are available today so for me, you know, we must be much more thought full and maybe congress will do this now as they debate the stimulus package and think about how do these things overlap if you're not going to have tenants pay rent, then you're going to let the landlord not pay the interest on the mortgage you don't have to mark that apartment loan to market because we told the tenants they don't have to pay. i don't mind what we've seen in our apartment

portfolio people are paying, almost all of them are paying, some are not when others find out others are not, they don't pay either you hope you'll recover the money at some point but you don't know everybody feels like they have an out it's not targeted. it has to be much more thoughtful i'm not opining on the number, i'm opining on how useful the stimulus packages are to the outcome we want which is to help the people in need and, you know, i'm in the hotel industry too we have far more people laid off in the hotel industry. we have to pay real estate taxes. we have hotels in europe right now running 8% occupancy in l.a. 4% occupancy i have an open hotel and i'm hemorrhaging cash every day. we didn't do this. it wasn't our fault. in england the government picked up real estate taxes for a while for hotel owners and in the u.s. they never talked about that they talked about helping the mbs loans. it would be much smarter to say

part of our stimulus package, we shut you down, mr. hotel, we'll pick up your real estate taxes it's apolitical. it was set by a city and it's historical you don't have to guess what the hotel is worth because the city did it for you, the state. i think the process has to be much more targeted because otherwise it's going to explode. so i worry about the debasing of the currency, endless stimulus packages, the thought that interest rates are low so it doesn't seem to hurt us. you know this isn't going to be different. it's never different leading up to the -- >> hey, barry -- >> i was going to say -- go ahead. sorry. >> well, no, no. i just wanted to jump in because i was hoping to return i know we only have two minutes to some of the spac questions we were in the midst of. >> you love spacs. >> i am fascinated by the spac situation. i'm fascinated that you come on and say effectively that a lot of these things are going to go bust obviously you're in the business

of promoting your own spacs right now but when you look at the investor base for the spac market right now, do you look at it as a retail market? do you look at it as the big institution, the smart money actually buying into the spacs when i say smart money, there's a lot of smart money buying into the original specific and they're levering that and getting out. i'm talking about whether you believe there are real investors backing the original after the sponsor buys and makes an acquisition. after these valuations >> the ipos are bought by -- our last ipo, spitfire, second spac, had 150 accounts 1.5 billion demand i think the follow-ones -- >> barry, those investors are -- just so we're clear, the investors who are buying at the ipo are real investors lefvering

their money. what i'm asking is a different question when it comes to the actual acquisition component, when you buy the company and you look at the pipes that are involved and you look at who's then buying on the other side, who's effectively getting left holding the bag, who is that >> i'll speak to our -- the one we've completed or almost completed and there are real investors in there but i'm sure there's tons of day traders, kids you can see the momentum what goes up goes up more and some of these stocks have gone linear straightup with no -- i mean, i can't -- i'm just watching and astonished. companies i passed on for 5 billion trading at $20 billion market caps with 1% gross margins and completely understandable businesses with canoe competitors buying their lunch. i don't know who it is i don't think we should assume all of the original investors are getting out.

i think there are companies that are trading like bitcoin, just going up and up and up they read about it on some social media platform or -- you know, they keep buying it. the kids, i have people in my hotels trading stock in the evening. they think it's the greatest thing ever. >> do you think there is something wrong then with the market do you think there's something wrong with the disclosures in an ipo you can't have forward looking projections. in this kind of market you can should the sponsors themselves be held responsible? we know when we talk about fees involved with spacs? the reason so many big-name sponsors are involved in this, it is so lucrative for them and it is truly a heads you win, tails you win situation if you're a sponsor in most cases >> look, i think, you know, they could have a sticker on it like a pack of cigarettes like this isn't for children you should know what you're doing and finding real companies, but, andrew, you pick on spacs, pick on ipos, too.

there are shitty -- shouldn't say that bad companies that are going public, quadrupling. i'll talk to the vcs they'll say the company isn't worth that, they go public and the stock goes up. it's not a spac. it's the same thing across the market the issue about the spac is you're right about the inherent conflict there is a group of people in the spac universe of sponsors that really don't care what they're paying for a company so the guy wants 2 billion, they say i'll pay you 3 billion and then they kind of go on tv sometimes on your show and just promote the hell out of their stocks that is like a bucket shop operator i don't know what the sec wants to do about it you have to be careful about what you say in public i have a big business, i have a reputation to protect. i'm not here -- i have done fine in life. i don't have to like do this i think it's interesting and diversification for me, interesting people, giving them

capitol to grow a business no different than a pe firm buying it and taking 20% of their profits. it's a very -- it's a legitimate market but it's actually -- you know, wall street should be a little more discriminating on who they back to be able to sponsor. at this point the investors don't care you can -- i have a very accomplished house manager, i'm sure you could do a spac too today. andrew, you should do a spac when is your spac coming out >> i'm working on it right now >> you, becky and joe. i'll do it with you. >> the squawk spac nkts nbc -- "squawk" spac. i think, look, we're in the late stage in the economy the business cycle has been suspended which you keep hearing every time the market goes up for ten years in a row that's never going to happen fundamentally we have a lot of issues in the economy like deglobalization, rising interest rates. we have inflation behind the

corona we want $15 minimum wages but what are they going to do to inflation and what does that do to the interest rate curve people forget the 10-year was 1.75 before the coronavirus hit. there's pressure on rates. >> right. >> fascinating i don't think we're having a problem in the stock market near term the stimulus is too big. come onto the back end of the year you should hold on. >> when business cycles return they return with a vengeance barry, i want to thank you for your time. it's really great talking to you. we'll have you back soon very interested in the stuff you're working on. thanks >> thanks, becky take care. a big hour still to come this morning including united airlines ceo scott kirby, new hampshire's governor chris sununu and dr. scott gottleib with the latest on the virus and what's happening with those quk x"ilbeig b "sawbo wl rhtack.

stocks rally to a second term yesterday the s&p 500 was up it's now up 14% since the election making this the biggest rally ever over that time frame and according to lpl financial it's the first time that the dow has made a new high on inauguration day our next guest though says he wouldn't be bullish if -- said

he wouldn't be bullish if biden won the presidency joining us is jake walthauer i remember your -- it was a nuanced viewpoint, jake. i don't remember that exactly. >> yeah, joe, you know, i was actually not necessarily a fan of a blue wave occurring because i felt that that might actually lead to higher deregulation, roll back of some of the trump era tax cuts i think now that we have one party in control in washington, d.c., it may actually be a good thing. this last round of stimulus negotiations i think forced the market to lose a lot of confidence in the ability of a two-party system to actually make good decisions. >> in trying to formulate eye questions for you, jake. we've got this, we've got that,

but then again we've got this and that and i realized i should probably do one of those ben franklin closes and just list the positives and list the negatives. i guess positives are the vaccine is one, the stimulus is another. stability in not having a news cycle that lasts every eight hours with something insane happening. that's a positive, but i can list some negatives, jake. i can definitely list some negatives. i've always thought that the market should set wage prices, i've always thought that i'm not convinced that there are places in this country where you won't see job losses for young people and for unskilled workers. if you go to 15, there will be job losses, i'm convinced of that and then you raise taxes, you reregulate everything. i mean, there are things that i think are definitely negative. how does it all play out in terms of net-net for what the market does? >> look, i think the biden

administration is handcuffed as it relates to tax reform and we certainly know that democratic administrations like to spend. so i think in the foreseeable future we sort of have the best of both worlds the democrats offering more spending, increased stimulus, and the old republican policy of lower taxes, which i think is net-net bullish for the market what i do think we're going to have to do here is not just play the market we're going to actually have to find sectors of the market that will continue to do well over the course of the next one to three years so it's going to be a stock picker's market. >> jake, you pick amazon and tesla. i mean, what do you -- i'm scared i'm scared because i'm -- they're both -- they both move so much. those are your two that you pick that would mean momentum continues. you must be at least overall bullish about momentum >> look, i continue to be very

bullish on the tech sector let's take amazon, for example everybody's using amazon now to get what they need businesses, individuals, it's hard to live without amazon and no matter how long this pandemic lasts, amazon is going to continue to do well. >> how about tesla >> with respect to tesla, you can't think about it from a valuation perspective. electronic vehicles are the wave of the future. finland, china, the u.s. are concerned about global warming electronic vehicles are going to be in demand. >> societal change jake, we'll have you back. we've got to end it there. a hard break, something. we've got to pay our bills. >> good to see you. >> good to see you, jake thanks andrew. on the other side of the break, big hour ahead. don't miss our exclusive interview with united airlines ceo scott kirby. the fourth straight quarterly loss we'll dig into the numrsbe and talk to airlines 2021 outlook

next we all get together and support each other. that's the nature of humanity. ♪ it has encouraged other people to take the time for each other. ♪ ♪ ♪ ooh la la by cherie ♪ it was the age of wisdom... ♪ ooh la la by cherie ♪ the moxie showerhead speaker. only from kohler. your daily dashboard from fidelity --

a visual snapshot of your investments, key portfolio events, all in one place. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity.

good morning, here we go it's an announcement this morning with ten more aimed at the coronavirus.

the yield is not going down. >> it was up yesterday. closing on 1.2 moderated a little dollar strengthened a little

these are small mofs we'll know a little bit more down the road. as we see some of them. >> we'll see >> all right take it away. let's get you caught up on some of the other stories that investors are going to be talking about today. >> travelers benefitted from lower catastrophe claims, a record jump in renewal premiums and strong underwriting results too. a bit of a trifecta.

shares hit a new 52-week high. >> the ceo of amazon's worldwide business says the company, quote, stands ready to assist you in reaching your goal of vaccinating 100 million americans in the first 100 days of your administration the letter says amazon can leverage its operational, technical expertise to get shots in american's arms three high profile chinese companies are looking tohave their american depository shares traded on the new york stock exchange china unicome hong kong, china mobile and china telecom said they asked to be delisted.

each of those shares a little weaker john, you have come down by 1.8% >> warning now of a difficult start to 2021. phil lebeau joins us with a special exclusive guest. the numbers you released, you lost $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter. wider than expected loss compared to analyst expectations do you think the fourth quarter was the bottom, so to speak, in terms of how bad it will be in terms of demand for air travel in the united states we've been getting progressively better core cash burn was 38 million in the second quarter, 28 million

in the third quarter and 19 million in the fourth quarter. with demand, it has flat lined we expect it to be similar in the first quarter. the good news is regardless of what happens in the near term, we have real confidence in the long term. there is a recovery. pent up demand for air travel. until we can put as a society coronavirus in the rear-view mirror, it's going to continue to be a tough environment for aviation for everyone involved in travel, tourism and leisure. >> you've got the prospect that you believe you'll get back to 2019 levels by 2023. we'll talk about that in a bit we have to talk about the near term a lot of people are saying, look, your competitors are coming out saying, hey, we think we'll be a cash flow break even by spring. why aren't you coming out and saying by spring, summer, whenever this is when we expect to be at a break-even? >> well, we've been more in some view conservative from the beginning of the crisis all the way back to march of last year

it turned out sadly to be realistic but hope is not a strategy for us. and we keep hoping that demand will be better but we're not counting on it and our guess is, our best middle of the fairway guess is demand takes a little longer i think we will be the first airline to return to cash break even if you look at it on an apples to apples basis we are not ready for the inflection point in the demand we need a critical mass of people in the country vaccinated we need a scientific medical conclusion that it not only protects you from the virus but also protects you from transmitting the virus that's the only way we get back to normal. in fact, the full capacity of restaurants, back to disneyland open, broadway shows open, office buildings fully occupied once we reach that conclusion. it doesn't seem like spring is 60 days away doesn't seem likely to us that's going to happen within 60 days we hope it does but it seems a little further out

the real point is longer term doesn't change 2023 whether it happens now or further in the future >> let's talk about advanced bookings you guys made a note of -- emphasizing your advanced bookings beyond the summer are improving. when we start to see that inflection point, whether it is in the spring, summer, whenever, how quickly do you expect that demand to snap back? >> look, we think that there will be huge pent-up demand. we know there's huge pent-up demand sorry, i have an earpiece problem. >> that's all right. it's live tv take your time >> it's okay and while we see near term weakness in demand, over the longer term what that shows you is there is strong pent-up demand for air travel. it's going to depend on the course of the virus. whether those bookings turn into real people showing up and flying this number or not is yet

to be determined what it shows you is the huge pent-up demand and people want to get back and want to travel and that that is going to happen at some point once we reach the inflection point on demand and the critical mass on vaccines. >> hey, scott, on the international level, how much would a vaccination passport, if you will, which a number of countries have said, and iota has come out and said, boy, this would be key to getting people internationally to fly more once we start to see vaccinations accelerate, you can go to an airline and say, look, here are my papers. i've been vac sin nated. i'm good to go do you think that's realistic we can see that happen on a worldwide basis? >> oh, absolutely. we think that is the key to getting borders reopened and getting travel back to where it was before look, it's not only the key to reopening the travel economy and aviation, to me it's the way we reopen restaurants, disneyland,

broadway shows i can imagine a world where once you've had the vaccine you have a qr code on your phone and you sm pli show i've been vaccinated, i am, therefore, safe i think it's going to be one of the real keys to reopening not just aviation, not just borders around the world but the whole travel entertainment all of the activities where we need to be together, where we need to be soicial some form of vaccination passport is going to be key to getting the economy open again. >> scott, what's your take on what you and other airlines have seen with passenger behavior i know the faa, we talked with the head of the faa, look, we will come out and we will start fining people and we will prosecute people if they act up either at the gate or on planes. what's your take on this >> well, look, 99.999% of our customers behave very well on airplanes. they appreciate the safety policies we have they appreciate the mask

policies and that works really, really well. for the very small minority of times where we do have issues with individual customers, our employees have done a phenomenal job of de-escalating and taking care of those situations, particularly our gate agents and flight attendants who are the tip of the spear in dealing with those situations, have really done a great job we think -- we appreciate the mask mandates that we expect to come out of the new administration the vast, vast majority of our customers want to do the right thing and do do the right thing on board their airplane. >> scott kirby, ceo of united airlines we've got to get you an earpiece one of these days we will get you an earpiece. >> we need a new one. >> we'll do that thank you for joining us this morning. andrew, the important thing to keep in mind as you look at the airlines, everybody is going to say we want a target date. that's going to be the question. whether or not investors say we need a target date to break even or listen to somebody like scott

kirby and say, there's no way of knowing depending on what happens with the vaccinations. guys, that's going to be the key determining factor for what we see with these airline stocks for the next couple of months. >> it's the great conundrum. investors do want that target date at the same time investors have been willing to look through a lot of things with the expectation on the other side things will get better thank you for bringing us that great interview. breaking news to tell you about from eli lilly on the covid antibody drug. i'll get straight to meg tirrell with the details on that meg? >> reporter: hey, andrew eli lilly has the antibody drug on the market for people who are recently diagnosed for covid-19, high risk of severe disease. they were running an interesting study in nursing homes where they would deploy a sort of mobile clinical trial van to nursing homes that had outbreaks to see if they could give folks this antibody preventively, to prevent them from getting

covid-19 they are just reporting the first results from the trial they say it shows the drug reduces the risk of getting symptomatic disease by up to 80% in the nursing home trial. we don't have all of the details. this is just a press release it looks like the drug was able to prevent and substantially reduce symptomatic disease some of the most vulnerable members of our society so if you can actually use these drugs to prevent people from getting sick with the disease, we don't know if it prevents infection completely but that could cut down on some of the most horrible effects we see particularly in nursing homes, guys this drug out there on the market with emergency use authorization for a different indication regeneron we should note is testing their disease. as we've seen the rollout of these antibodies much more difficult than was hoped for this could be the potential way

of using them. guys >> meg, that was my question we've looked at it we know there's a limited supply of these things. we know how difficult it is because of the transfusion you need for some of these things, that they target it differently, that's their thought on this we could protect the most vulnerable people? >> right so one of the issues with the way the antibody drugs are being used now is you get your diagnosis with covid but you're supposed to get this antibody drug as quickly as possible after that diagnosis with testing delays, that's complicated. only people who are at high risk of severe disease. then you have to go somewhere and get infused with the drug. you're contagious with covid-19. it's a whole issue the fact that you could use this preventively in people in nursing homes or people exposed because of a house mate -- >> that's where the vaccinations come. >> could be particularly nursing homes. could be a different way of administering these in a very effective way. >> thanks, meg

>> thanks. >> great inhaler. they've got to get -- keep working on be the inhalers, right, sorkin for all of this stuff. do the inhaler >> yeah. >> but, i don't know. >> infusions are tough. >> yeah, can't do it yet some day maybe modern medicine. modern medicine, we're pulling for it coming up, we'll talk about how states hope to work with the new biden administration and recover from covid-19 as the president gets ready to sign more executive orders targeting the coronavirus. new hampshire governor chris sununu will join us. stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc 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. hello. [all] hey... there he is.

workday, the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪ch-ch-changes♪ 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 some companies still have hr stuck between employees and their data. does this come in blue? entering data. changing data. more and more sensitive, personal data. and it doesn't just drag hr down. it drags the entire business down -- with inefficiency, errors and waste. it's ridiculous. so ridiculous. with paycom, employees enter and manage their own data in a single,

easy to use software. visit paycom.com, and schedule your demo today.

coming up when we return, new jobless claims data. plus dr. scott gottleib is going to join us on what faster delivery of the coronavirus vaccine could mean for job gains. we'll talk about that and so much more when "squawk" returns.

one of president biden's top agenda items is a 1.9 trillion covid relief plan. that could have a big impact on states joining us is governor chris sununu 20 after 8 i want to do a day in the life segment. you're already working but when you get done with this, what are you going to do -- what do you need to do today in new hampshire for covid right now? what's on -- what can you do tell me. >> vaccines. so we're all on the vaccines we're opening up phase 1b tomorrow folks in new hampshire can pick

up the phone at 8:00 in the morning. we know our system will have an onslaught of couple hundred thousand people registering, signing up if you're 65 and over we've made it easy, which is a great thing. it means you will get an onslaught. we're focusing on making sure the logistics are in place so we can deliver. we're limited by wa we get from the federal government with the vaccine. we're very, very limited would he can get it out logistically 1b, a lot are elderly. maybe they don't have great internet access. what's our switchboard going to be like? what do you need from the biden administration >> flexibility flexibility. states know how to do it republicans and democrats are looking for out of the biden administration didn't hear a whole lot of it

yesterday, but that's okay we're still hopeful down the road governors can manage i know governor cuomo said if i don't get 15 billion i'm raising taxes. we are cutting taxes we've kept our numbers down. it's not easy. you've got to manage we've done it. that makes us more attractive to businesses and families coming in ultimately this is important because it increasies things. 2021 will be a great, great summer you have to make it great. >> we heard the darkest days are still ahead. i mean, we did take yesterday as a record in deaths because of the holidays, the residual, but are there signs that that is easing are you optimistic with the vaccine that maybe we are on the

other side of this >> i am very optimistic. i've got to be honest. when you talk about dark days, you talk about the spirit of america. you talk about the attitude. i think people are very hopeful ahead. we have a lot more fatalities. we will still see some elevated levels in hospitalizations those levels in the northeast and new hampshire seem to have peaked they are on the downswing. the most vulnerable part of the population here in new hampshire, it's about the same in america. 65 and older accounts for about 95 to 98% of the unfortunate fatalities if you get that population alone vaccinated, you put a huge shield and a huge protector around the biggest part of this crisis, which is hospitalizations and fatalities. you don't have to vaccinate every person in this country to get out of this, not by any means. you have to take care of the most vulnerable, make sure they come first for the right reasons. in the next few months, not years, we're coming out of this.

>> some of the things on the plate for near term, i'm not talking about just covid, i'm talking about some of the economic proposals, 1.9 trillion that we're talking about there's a $15 minimum wage would that work in new hampshire? >> no. look, it's a disaster. 15 -- i have one of the strongest economies in the country. we just tie ourselves to the federal minimum wage virtually no one in new hampshire makes minimum wage we have some of the highest wages in the country one of the lowest poverty rates in the country $15 minimum wage throws all of that up in the air people thinks brings people from $7 to 15 and it would cut hours and jobs it would be devastating. then you add on the guy making 18 has to go to 23 the guy making 23 has to go to 38 the inflationary problem that creates in small business, i used to be able to tell what you

it would mean to my company. $15 minimum wage would be a disaster especially in new hampshire. >> why don't we know about the effects of this? i have people that come on from the proponents of it and people that don't want to do it and they both have all of these facts and studies that are done. the other side says that it immediately goes into consumer's pocket and immediately starts spreading through the economy, you're building from the ground up for the low end of wage earners. >> no. they know. they know. look at what happened in seattle. look what happened in san francisco. look what happened to some of the states that made drastic moves. you are not talking going from 7 to 11, we're talking 7.80 to 15. >> staged. staged and then the other side says you know what the real minimum wage is zero if you lose 3 million jobs or 4 million jobs then the minimum

wage -- you can't raise that it doesn't help. i don't know we're rushing into it. we're going to do it, it looks like, doesn't it, governor >> i hope not because, again, what happens in new hampshire economically for businesses might be different than mississippi, california, new york to set the minimum bar which is incredibly high for so many businesses to overcome, something has to give. somebody has to pay. go ask ann rand. it proves itself out jobs have to be lost hours have to be lost. usually it's the lowest wage earners that get cut back first. it's the high school kids that can't get the summer job anymore or the intern that has to intern for another two years because they can't pay that lower wage individual to get that experience it's not just economics, that work experience you need we don't have enough employees

in this country right now, right? every business that is struggling to get employees is paying every dollar they can to put people on the line to get people in their shop minimum wage -- what they're trying to do is get a political win on something that isn't a fundamental problem, at least in new hampshire right now. >> governor, i just -- i was struck by something you said earlier, and i'm a new yorker so i took offense so i wanted to just ask you, why did you just take a shot at the governor of new york for asking for money at a time when clearly new york has been harder hit than, for example, your own state? you talk about trying to help those that are in need clearly the state of new york has been affected by this in a way that yours has not and at the same time i would suggest to you that new york is a quote, unquote, giver in terms of federal taxes to the system and your own state is a taker. >> look, somebody has to pay for that 15 billion that he's coming with his hand out for. good management and -- >> no, no, but new york has been

paying for your handout. >> why should i pay his bill >> governor, governor, new york has been paying your bills is the point. the point is that new york has been paying your bills for years. so it makes no sense >> but the issue i have is actually for new yorkers the citizens of new york pay 60, 70% more in taxes than the citizens of new hampshire and guess what they're leaving new york in droves the businesses, their families, they're all coming to places like new hampshire if the only answer for your governor is to say i'm coming with my hand out, give me 15 billion or else i'll raise taxes, to give that type of threat on behalf of his own citizens, what he's going to do to his citizens if joe biden doesn't help him out, that's not leadership that's pathetic. he has to be held accountable for it because guess what, i have to pay it, you have to pay it. >> governor, with respect to state of new hampshire's had its hand out for years. >> on what. >> you've been taking money from

states like new york and california for years and i would suggest to you recommending what the governor of new york should be doing, there's lots of challenges in the state of new york but in the giver and taker situation it's clear, it's empiric al who's giving and taking. >> i don't want a penny out of the federal government to replace my revenues. he's demanding $15 billion he's demanding -- >> you take federal money constantly more than you give to the government i mean, you -- >> how are we taking more? what are you basing that on? how are we taking more from the federal government >> look at the federal tax receipts coming out of the state of new hampshire versus the amount of federal money coming into the state of new hampshire. >> okay. but, again, this isn't about -- this is about what he's doing to the citizens of new york and they should be outraged. they should be furious that he cannot manage like most of the other governors have done. look, i'm cutting taxes in the

state. aim he creating opportunities. it's not about bigger government or bigger systems, it's about giving efficiency to the system so they can provide the services that are needed and letting people have that economic freedom and that way the whole system rises he's missed the boat completely. i didn't get on to try to take a shot at andy, but the fact of the matter is we all have to pay for that >> it's andrew you're talking about cuomo never mind >> a couple of andrews we're confused thank you, governor sununu breaking news. steve liesman is standing by with economic data steve, the numbers please. >> 1.669 on housing starts that's a beat. jobless falling to 900,000 a little bit better than expected but still a really lousy number can i use that word thatster licht used earlier today i don't think so 900,000 on claims. 1.6 million. and the philly fed looks like

11.1 no, that's an old number i do not have the philly fed and i can't do quite the dance that rick does when he doesn't have -- he's a better dancer than i 78. real quickly on the housing starts i'm looking for the permits plus 4.5% that's a good number we have diana olick going to talk about the housing i'll get you the philly fed, joe, when it comes around. >> all right, steve. thank you. beck let's get over to diana olick. she has more on the housing starts numbers that we just talked to. diana? >> reporter: this is a strong number especially for the single family housing starts. that's what we're really focusing on. that's where we're seeing the biggest shortage, need for homes. we saw single family housing starts up 12% month to month 27.8% year over year that's a little surprising because the home builders and the sentiment numbers actually pulled back. they were citing things like the

high costs of land, labor, materials and in addition we saw a huge spike in lumber prices in december so we might have expected that to hit the december housing starts but they didn't that's great on the single family on multi-family you did see 15% drop month to month. but that is for one a very volatile number and for two, we don't need as much multi-family housing units right now as we do single family. we have existing homes for sale. the home builders have such a huge backlog enormous amount of homes that have been contracted but not built yet. they need to get that backlog through the pipes and out. their biggest concern as they said in the sentiment numbers was as their prices continue to increase, they have to send that onto the buyer and affordability is really getting hit we know on the existing side. affordability is weakening as home prices spike. good to see that the demand was still good in deeds despite the pandemic lockdowns in some areas and that high lumber prices that

could have hit the builder nice jump. back to you guys. >> steve, you've been looking through the numbers. what else did you come up with >> just a big number here on philly fed the business index 26.5 versus 9 in december. so that's a good number. manufacturing has done quite well and it's been kind of breaking the mold in terms of what else is happening in the economy. housing and manufacturing both two bright spots again, the claims numbers are pretty lousy still at 900,000 down going the right way, you might say, but still at a very elevated level i'll be listening to the ecb lagarde den and come back. >> we are watching the futures still higher even after that disappointing news when we come back, dr. scott gottleib will join us on president biden's plans to fight covid and potstive antibody news

from eli lilly this moinrng. stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc. t-mobile knows the new year brings big news! get an iphone 12 with 5g on us on every single plan. and save 20% on your bill every month versus the other guys. that's right. the iphone 12 on us. only at t-mobile. ♪♪ hey you, yeah you. i opened a sofi money account and it was the first time that i realized i could be earning interest back on my money. i just discovered sofi, and i'm an investor with a diversified portfolio. who am i?! i refinanced my student loans with sofi because of their low interest rates. thanks sofi for helping us get our money right. ♪♪

your daily dashboard from fidelity -- a visual snapshot of your investments, key portfolio events, all in one place. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity.

welcome back to "squawk box. after months of tough economic data, the number we got is worse than anything we've seen the best stimulus is the vaccine rollout. here to talk about that as well

as some of the drug news we just got from eli lilly a short time ago, former fda commissioner, dr. scott gottleib let's start with the eli lilly news which meg tirrell brought us the idea the drug may be 80% effective. how do you see that? how do you see it playing itself out given it has to be accomplished in a hospital environment as opposed to something that can be used at home. >> yeah, well, this is a really good result. it's quite frankly not a big surprise these drugs are most effective if used very early in the course of the disease and probably more effective if used as a prophylaxis. we've talked about using the antibodies as a bridge to a vaccine. they were effective as a p prophylaxis when used. they were less effective late in the disease. once you get too much virus on

board you can't mop it up with an antibody drug by infusing it at that point. one way we might be able to use this is patients who can't get access at the vaccine, at high risk for a bad outcome you can proprofalax patients patients coming in for chemotherapy ordialysis, you can protect them for a full month until they can get vaccinated or if they're at very high risk of covid >> what do you make of the letters we saw come from amazon yesterday? you saw them offer their own support to roll out the vaccine and also get access to the vaccine for its employees. it cuts both ways in terms of some people saying they're jumping the line, they can do this efficiently and if they can

get this into the arms of hundreds of thousands of people that may be vectors and they're out there on the front line and maybe deserving because they're on the front line. >> yeah, well, look. amazon has a lot of essential employees keeping this economy going through this crisis. we're ordering a lot more from amazon because we're not going out and shopping that's following good guidance, trying to stay home more, doing more online. their workers are on the front line both are true. amazon can help with distribution and has a lot of employees who are at high risk trying to prevent covid among their employees. they built their over high kploerks at this laboratory to do testing so they've invested a lot of money in trying to build out their own internal resources to do more surveillance and testing of employees it doesn't surprise me they're trying to gain access to protect

those employees. >> one of the other things we saw yesterday is president biden signing so many executive orders one is to use the defense production act to speed along access to the vaccine but also better testing, ppe, the like, if you were advising the president now and in terms of how they're going to do this, in terms of communications they're going to have with companies, what would you be telling him he needs to do and what companies does he need to be working with? >> the dpa has been useds literally hundreds of times by the trump administration mostly to get in front of lines on contracts i think there are ways that could use the dpa more immediately. one is masks i don't see why we can't be doing more to provide n- 5 masks to provide protection for high-risk individuals.

the material used in hepa filters is the same blow fill used in an n-95 mask. the other thing they're looking for is needles think of a tuberculin syringe. it's a very graduated syringe. it draws up only a little bit with each pull if they use a syringe like that to vaccinate people, you could be more to extend the supply of the vaccine stock is to distribute different kinds of syringes that's where they could use the dpa. i think they're looking at that. >> doctor, are you recommending though that we're still just talking about who's jumping -- not who's jumping the line but the government getting to the front of the line or are you talking about the government saying to certain companies, we are asking you now, in fact demanding that you produce and

manufacture certain goods that you are not manufacturing today and i would also ask why testing is not on that list given the terrible state of testing in this country right now. >> it's a really good question we've been using the dpa to get to the front of the line what they're looking at is using the dpa to take over production. the two places that may be the most obvious is on masks where you can use other kinds of production and material to try to develop more n-95 masks and syringes there's other places i'm not thinking those are two places where you could take over existing production and reorient it towards priorities for covid on testing we've struggled all the way through on the testing i think it's starting to be resolved we're going to see many more point and care tests the pcr based back bone has been built out. we have done over 2 million cases every day. there's a lot of testing in the

market i think that's going to be less of a struggle going forward than it's been up until this point. >> hey, dr. gottleib, can i just ask you about the testing. as you know, i'm caught in my own hell about testing turns out we thought we were exposed to somebody last friday. turns out the whole family has been tested. the pcr came back inconclusive even after the person we exposed us got a negative pcr test back. we are caught in a hell where nobody can go back to school i'm not going to be able to get an effective test before we run down the clock on the ten-day waiting time testing in this nation is still ridiculously complicated the tests are largely inaccurate when you look at the tests out there, specifically the rapid tests. you yourself told me it's less than 50% effective if you are not showing any symptoms that makes me think that we're still going to be a very long way from where we can actually

get to the point where things move quickly, we can bring people in and say, we've waited 15 minutes, you don't have a problem. >> yeah, look. i think it's not just a question of testing supply though i think it's a question of testing access we have a lot of supply. the supply of testing isn't where people are going to get tested we're not doing a good job of distributing samples to the lab who have a capacity. and the bottom line is there are technological implications here. a lot of the antiaggen tests ar not good the situation you're in, the pcr tests are overly sensitive you can get a false positive if you run the cycle times high enough, which a lot of labs do i think it's a function of how we're using the tests is part of the challenge. not a function of the absolute supply it's a lot of testing supply we're not getting it where it needs to be and not fitting the right test to the right purpose.

>> thank you, dr. gottleib appreciate it. thanks for listening to me complaining. anyway, when we come back, jim cramer's going to join us as we get closer to the opening bell t wtee biden's first full day inhehi house stay tuned, everybody. "squawk box" will 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. hello. [all] hey... there he is. workday, the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪ch-ch-changes♪

get to cnbc headquarters jim cramer joins us now. lost in all of the general news,

jim. i thought procter & gamble was kind of fascinating. we saw united today. we're right in the middle of earnings season. intel. what are the most important data points that you see coming this week in corporate reports? >> well, i think that there's a lot of good setups we have a great setup for apple. a lot of people taking the numbers up we have a great setup for amazon i thought proctor was great. people don't want the stocks right now. if you can get mid single digit growth, organic growth, you have the long-term projections, how do you go wrong on procter & gamble if you're a wealthy individual or someone trying to build a diversified portfolio? it's coming down i think that's a great opportunity. people are yawning at it they all want to own gme what do they want to own rocketship spac. i agree with andrew, by the way, there are so many spacs you start to question whether there is some sort of gresham's law.

good money bringing down the rest i don't trust most of them what they are is a chance too hype something for a few weeks i love barry sternlicht but three spacs plus starwood. is he jack dorsey? square and runs twitter? i don't know, joe. you should focus on one thing and run it great that's what i would do. >> yeah. we had jon fortt on talking about intel. it's a different kind of a -- i guess challenge that the company says they were facing it four, five years ago. that's not that profound is intel -- is that a must hold for the future >> no. >> i thought it must be. >> no. i think you correctly identified the fact that it was about yield. first line gets 65 up to 95, then 99. now they've been left behind by other companies that are doing such amazing things.

intel is pretty static i think you know in this environment being static, almost going to foundry taiwan semi. intel is the great jest foundry builder. can they catch up? amd and n nvidia have really, really come on intel is like really have come on. they have better clients and better internet of things. intel is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. >> jim, thanks we'll get more from you in ten minutes or so. coming up, we're going to take an in depth look at small and mid cap name, the russell 2000 is already up 9% this year where ou tseshldhe stocks fit neur portfolio stay tuned "squawk box" is coming right back hey, dad! hey, son! no dad, it's a video call.

you got to move the phone in front of you like..like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most and $0 commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today.

welcome back to "squawk box. an update from the european central bank after it left its rates unchanged this morning steve? >> andrew, the big new, the european central bank holding steady at a very easy policy, lots of lending out there, special pandemic specific programs, but la guard, the president of the ecb, likely contracting in the fourth quarter and the surge in the

pandemic right now is disrupting economic activity. likely to weigh in on the activity in the first quarter and saying risks in the economy are tilted to the downside speed of vaccinations are uncertain, the way they are here in the u.s. and she will monitor exchange rate developments you'll note that the euro has strengthened pretty substantially against the dollar over the past several weeks. she did call the brexit agreement, the strength in manufacturing, and the ending of u.s. election uncertainty as all positives to the our rezone economy. back to you. >> steve, thanks very much. we've been watching the small cap stocks pretty closely, they've seen some huge gain, the russell 2000 up nearly 30% since november's election. joining us with a look at whether she thinks that run will continue and how to play it is julie beel, proval manager and research analyst at cain anderson rudnick, and julie, just looking at this, you say

you're dialing back a little bit and pulling a little bit back from some of the high flyers that you see but you do think there is certainly room to run at least in some areas of the market why don't you explain. >> absolutely. thank you for having me. you know, i see in the small cap space,isticly we've particularly we've seen the high-tech growth names expanding beyond what is reasonable valuation-wise, so we've taken back some of those and we've continued to look in places and opportunities where there's still opportunity for growth and i think on the vertical software side, that's the place that i'm really interested in. and even on the consumer side. so just dialing up the cyclicals a little bit but i don't want to abandon our, the high quality focus that we have we're long term investors and we believe in quality returns through a cycle. >> let's talk specific names, because you do have a list of the biggest holdings you have, at least for the mid caps right now, i think number one on the

list is site one site is the stock symbol. >> correct site one is a great company and it's actually benefitted from everyone staying at home and making home improvements they're a company that does a lot of lawn and garden supply, particularly on the professional end, the consumer, a lot of people have been freshening up their home space, and it sounds like we're going to be there for a while. >> in terms of other themes that you're seeing here, health equity is one that you like to, and how much because of the current health care crisis we're seeing and how much is a longer term play that you're seeing >> for me, this is a longer term play we see a continuing shift towards high deductible plans, and companies wanting to manage their health care costs, and health equity does a wonderful job of do, of doing that. >> in terms of themes for software, you like what you say is vertical software, not horizontal software names. you want to describe the

difference >> sure. so with the coming of the pandemic, and everyone's working from home, we saw a lot of adoption of what i would call horizontal software. that is software that could apply to really any industry so think of zoom or microsoft, we had a real scramble towards adopting these newer technologies, docu-sign, and you saw the stocks move in tandem. what we really like are the vertical software names, and these are companies that do domain-specific software so software for, you know, specifically state and local governments for example or infrastructure, or insurance or banking. these companies have really strong domain expertise. they know their customers inside and out and that allows them to compete really well against the larger behemoths and we think that they have -- sorry. >> go ahead, finish your thought. >> we think that generally speaking, too, because they have kind of a more concentrated market, they have great earnings power, and really wonderful

profitability that we expect to see over time. >> five nine, one of the stocks that you hold most closely, does that kind of fit into that framework there? >> yes, absolutely, that's contact center software. and it's a company that's, it is an interesting benign competitive landscape. there's a lot of barriers around this space, and obviously, with works from home, happening, you saw the need for cloud contact center software and these guys are the leaders in that space, so they have really benefitted >> and finally, old dominion, that's the freight line, one of your big holdings. how you would explain why you like that one so much? >> you know, i think the network effect is probably one of the strongest business models that i can think of and old dominion has incredible service levels and in an economy where supply chain is so critical, they really play a key, they're a key provider in that kind of environment

so i love that network effect, it's really powerful >> julie, we've spent a lot of time talking about spacs this morning, the concerns and maybe the difference between spacs and ipos what are your thoughts on it >> i think to me, the reason to stay high quality is these kind of canaries in coal line and one of them i would point to is definitely spacs my concern is i agree that the ipo process is maybe flawed, seeing stocks go up 100% is not ideal really but the actual ipo process of the formal s-1 is important. i mean you know, let's look back to the company wework. that is a company that really had no business going public and i think that was ferreted out through the ipo process. i think it's really critical that we continue to do this process, because it protects, at the end of the day, it protects retail investors, from making mistakes in companies that really have fundamental business model flaws. >> julgy, thanks for your time

this morning good to see you. >> my pleasure thank you. >> take a quick look at the markets this morning, the futures had been higher through much of this morning, you're seeing some of the gains kind of giving back at this point. almost at the flat line, both for the s&p 500 and the dow right now, the nasdaq still up by 31 points remember, all three of these averages were at record closes yesterday. that does it for us today. we will see you right back here tomorrow guys have a good day. and folks, we will see you again tomorrow right now it's time for "squawk on the street" good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber futures basically flat on this first full day of the biden white house, as the one-year anniversary happens today of the first documented covid case in the u.s. lots of earnings and macro data including jobless claims 900 k. the road map