welcome to "power lunch. i'm john stephanie will join me for an hour

and later, bitcoin still hot, hovering above 30,000 and there's one sign investors are buying the dip and we'll have more on that. but first, let's start with the markets. a parade of earnings out this morning. bob pisani has more. bob? >> good to see you, as always. flat-ish day, but we're getting a lot of guidance. quiet on 2021. and this is good news. kind of disappointing on their guidance they had some restructuring charges in there, but free cash flow is improving. the street loves that. that's the highest level since february a little over $11 for ge johnson and johnson was great. a modest beat but 2021 guidance

well above expectations. that's what the street wants to hear that is an historic high for johnson and johnson. disappointed but beat due to provisions for credit losses that's not considered a high quality beat by the street they want to see more fundamental underlying people spending more it wasn't there and the downside overall, off to a good start on the fourth quarter there's almost 20% reporting here about 85 companies reporting, 85% and very wide amounts. the other day, close to 18% and now down to about 12% but much more than normal and that's what we need to continue seeing as for this crazy short selling game short covering gain we've been seeing here, the stocks most heavily shorted on the street getting a lot of activity today, including gamestop up again today. all of these stocks are below their intraday highs of yesterday but as you can see, they're all up today and their characteristic is they have heavy short positions here gamestop between 63 and 160

yesterday. near the highs for today bed, bath and beyond never moves. between $46. that was crazy, highest level in several years for that and you can see it's up again today. amc, tanger factory outlook. and irobot, all companies, characteristically, heavily shorted today. back to you. >> bob, thanks weird action for more on that, let's welcome stephanie link chief investment officer who's going to be with us for the hour stephanie, great to have you a couple of things i want to talk to you about. >> hi john >> i want to get into some of this weird stock action, maybe some of it short driven but first, the industrial earnings what was your takeaway >> yeah, and as bob said, free cash flow is the story it's the theme and they all positively surprised 3m, and

much more organic growth expectations 3% driven by the consumer guidance was very solid. so a very good quarter for 3m and it's encouraging to see them making progress and then in terms of ge, that's the only thing we care about is free cash flow because of the leverage on the balance sheet. and i thought the guidance was good for operation margins on the industrial business, up 250 basis points or organic growth in the low single digits that would be a remarkable turn. the quality of earnings at ge is absolutely improving and i think it's going to start to be hard and difficult not to have a position in that name. i do have a position in that position and i think raytheon was the winner, actually they have $10 billion now in cash on their balance sheet. they announced $1.5 billion buyback, so i think actually, probably see that increase throughout the year but really good numbers there too so very encouraged and again, full disclosure, i own that one as well. >> a lot of the companies you just mentioned are mostly

obeying the laws of physics and the rules of nature in the stock market there are a bunch of companies that aren't. we've been talking about gamestop a lot over the past few days and yeah, we talked about tesla in recent weeks. look at blackberry up 46% in a week p palenteer. stitch fix, hasn't dramatically changed and weren't paying close attention but that quadrupled. what does that tell you? >> very high short interest. this is where i think you have this speculation where i think you're seeing a bubble happening. i don't think the market as a whole? a bubble but these names clear ly it depends on your style, john are you a fundamentalist or looking at charts and short interest and i just kind of feel like these are really dangerous. you can make a lot of money but lose a lot of money in a heartbeat and by the way, why is

it that short interest is so high at all of these companies it's because the fundamentals aren't that good so i think that you have to be very, very careful if you want to play one as a speculation, fine, but that's just certainly not my bally wick >> in stocks like gamestop have been igniting fears of a potential market bubble. wait, we've got president biden making some statements let's get out to see the president. >> the moment it arrived as a nation, we face deep racial inequities, systemic racism that's plagued our nation for far, far too long. i said it over the course of the past year that the blinders have been taken off of the nation of the american people, but what many americans didn't see or simply refuse to see couldn't be ignored any longer those 8 minutes and 46 seconds

that took george floyd's life opened the eyes of millions of americans and millions of people all over the world it was the knee on the neck of justice and it wouldn't be forgotten. it stirred the conscience of tens of millions of americans and in my view, it marked a turning point in this country's attitude toward racial justice when 6-year-old daughter, gianna, who i've met when i met with the family, i leaned down to say hi toher and she looked to me and said, daddy changed the world. that's what gianna said, his daughter, dad decdy changed the world. i believe she was right. not because the injustice stopped, but because the ground has shifted. because it's changed minds and mindsets because it laid the groundwork

for progress covid-19 further ripped a path of destruction through every community in america but no one has been spared but the devastation in communities of color. it's been nothing short of stunning just look at the numbers 40% of front line workers, nurses, first responders, grocery store workers are americans of color and many are still living on the edge one in ten black americans is out of work today. one in 11 latino americans is out of work today. one in seven households, about one in four black, one in five latino households in america report that they don't have enough food to eat in the united states of america. black and latino americans are dying of covid-19 at rates nearly three times that of white americans. it's not white americans' fault but just a fact, and the americans now know it. especially younger americans one of the reasons i'm so optimistic about this nation is

that today's generation of young americans is the most progressive, thoughtful, inclusive generation that america has ever seen. and they are pulling us toward justice in so many ways. forcing us to confront the huge gap in economic inequity between those at the top and everyone else forcing us to confront the axis t a axi axistential crisis of climate change it was just weeks since violently attack our democracy it's time to act because that's what faith and morality calls us to do. across nearly every faith, the same principles hold we're all god's children we should treat each other as we would like to be treated

ourselves, and this is time to act and this time to act because what the core values of this nation calls us to do. and i believe the vast majority of americans, democrats, republicans and independents share these values and want us to act as well >> that is the president, joe biden, talking about some executive orders that he just signed dealing with the way the federal government treats race i also want now to bring in jim paulson, we were starting to bring in chief investment strategist. jim, the president has just signed these executive actions that deal with some federal policy around race he says the blinders have been taken off when it comes to these issues he was talking about george floyd and the incident last year where he was killed by a police officer saying it was the knee on the neck of justice he talked about systemic racism and white supremacy which might be the first time hearing those terms used by a u.s. president

in this kind of forum, and i wonder, jim, as we look at how investors are treating companies in this market, corporate policy, the shift in administrations, what does it signal that in his first few days in office, that the president is signing executive orders that are affecting policy in this way? >> well, i sit right in the epicenter of the george floyd crisis here in minneapolis and there's definitely a need for change there has been for some time and it certainly was a lightning rod to bring attention to that i think it's a good thing. i think it's the president's right, the statistics show that covid has been particularly harder on minority groups than others lower income groups overall. so, you know, i think it fits

with the popularity, increasing popularity, john, of esg investing and the kind of the thought that there's more to running a company than just maximizing profits there's greater goals. some of those, that probably will be to the benefit of the companies themselves but certainly to the country so there's a lot of things that have been stepping, i think, in a little bit better direction. i think this is probably one of them >> you're talking about that revolution in esg. there's also been a fresh revolution in retail investing, different ways that people have been doing that and we've seemed to see some effects in the market stephanie and i were just talking about, i don't know if you want to call it the gamestop phenomenon, what's happening a lot of people trying to cover shorts and stocks, moving in quite a volatile way what's an investor to look out for here and what do you think this is going to mean for trading in 2021 overall?

>> well, i'm with stephanie on that i'm not one to be wanting to play around with those stocks. i agree with her, there's great possibilities of making a lot of money but you could lose a lot too. i think at the end of the day, john, this is a small number of stocks, heavily shorted in an upward moving market some semblance of this occurs in every bull market when the shorts get caught. this is pretty dramatic what we've seen with the movements in gamestop and a few others but i don't think it's that representative of the entire market and i certainly don't think it signals that there's some horrific cycle ending bubble that's about ready to play out at all for the stock market i heara lot that the stock market is way ahead of fundamentals but i think fundamentals are coming up fairly dramatically. we came off of 33% revival and real gdp in the third quarter,

gdp now for the fourth quarter is 7.5% for the fourth quarter we've had a tremendous revival in a lot of economic statistics. from profitability to jobs from consumer spending, from capital goods spending there's a lot of fundamentals and i think bob pisani saying that the beats are 85% in the fourth quarter and by 12% margins is testament that fundamentals are keeping up with the market i think we're a long ways from an aggregate bubble type of market there's pocket of bubbleiciousness, but i'm not sure it applies to the whole market. >> it's stephanie, good to see you. quick question for you i always worry about something i worry when i don't worry because that means we're too complacent but one thing on my mind and i want to get your take on it is commodity prices and

the increases that we have seen from the march lows in copper, alu aluminum, steel, et cetera i'm wondering when this all comes home to roost in earnings and margins being impacted or do you think companies have actually gotten so much in terms of productivity and they've restructured so much, they can handle a little bit higher input costs? >> i am worried, my biggest worry is not so much for this year but beyond this year, stephanie, 2022-'23. i think we way overused economic policies, not only in the united states but around the globe. the policies from monetary, fiscal that we're utilizing bigger than ever before in our history and i do wonder what the latent impact of that eventually is and one could certainly be runaway costs or runaway inflation pressures that could bring an early abort to this recovery overall, but there are some good offsets to that.

you bring up one, productivity what i would say is a recent piece that i've written here shows that when you have great growth stock cycles like we have had in the last few years over value stocks, that's typically led by accelerated growth in productivity over the next three years. so we've got at least one signal suggesting when you have a surge in spending on new products, that suggests new way, new methodologies to do things and suggests applying more efficient methodologies, increasing the productivity of your labor force, that leads to greater productivity so we might get a productivity surge just at the time that we need it against all the stimulus hitting aggregate demand in the world. >> all right jim paulson. thank you. >> thanks. and coming up, it is tilman tuesday. billionaire entrepreneur going to talk about his latest deal

with the restaurant industry and the tu ofuref the houston rockets. that's up next on "power lunch." e 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.

welcome back to "power lunch. houston rockets owner and landry's chairman tilman his blank check firm and financial group striking $2.64 billion deal to merge with hardware supplier hillman group. involved in two others including

one for his golden nugget online gaming and small cap joining us now to discuss this and a lot more tilman good afternoon great to see you >> how are you doing today >> doing well. this hillman deal is interesting to me because the ceo, i believe, was quoted talking about how the home now the not just a place where people sleep and eat. it's a school. it's work from home. how much of this deal is based on this idea that the shift that we're seeing in this pandemic is here to stay >> you know, it was a lot of it and we started looking at this, of course, during the pandemic and we saw that there were more people in lowe's and home depot than anywhere else and 50% of this company's business is done, a wholesale company and when you go to one of these hardware

stores and you're buying products, most likely, you're walking out there with at least one hillman product and it's a durable good that we like. it's going to be there forever we've done a couple of tech companies in waiter and g notnog and happy with both but we wanted to do something different. we wanted one of the companies to grow like this. it's not a bunch of hopefully future earnings, but it's real earnings today that's going to grow every year. that's one of those stocks you put away and you look up in ten years and you go, wow. so we're truly excited about it. spent a lot of time on this. it's a great company >> let's get inside your head more on this idea of investing in the future beyond this difficult time that we're in and i want to talk about the restaurant business specifically because it has been hit so hard, as you know, as well as anyone

the national restaurant association said that restaurant or food service sales were $240 billion below where they were projected to be in 2020. so what's the opportunity there for somebody like you, and some of our viewers who have some capital to invest in a way that's going to accelerate out of this time that we're in >> it's really sad because there's going to be huge opportunities and companies like mine who knew how to maneuver in these times are going to survive and be well capitalized to take advantage of these opportunities and it's a shame that it's happening because i don't think it had to happen i think that we should have done a better job as americans to make sure that no business went out of business because of this pandemic and we didn't do that

as a country equalizing wealth, it's very unfair because coming out of a downturn like this, the wealthier are going to get more wealth and so many other companies aren't and it's a shame. it's truly a shame and all we can do was, we're going to look for opportunities, we're going to try to keep people working in these companies that we go out and acquire, but right now, today, i mean, we're definitely on the hunt right now and it's a shame because it's a pandemic and not because of poor management i have no problem taking the opportunity when it's poor management and keeping all these other people's jobs, but this time, management didn't deserve it either. >> tilman, i have a broader question about the consumer because you have so many touch points in your businesses to the consumer with regards to restaurants, as you just pointed, the arena with your sports team and then casinos so i'm kind of curious where you see the state of the consumer because the data points are

really, really mixed we have 10 million people who are unemployed and out of a job, right? and a very high unemployment rate at the same time, consumer confidence is strong and we have record levels of savings so kind of what you think about the consumer from what you experience and do you believe we're going to see very strong pent up demand once we all get vaccinated >> definitely. i think starting in the spring, it's going to be unbelievable. you know, i'm sure it's just an accident but since the inauguration on wednesday, most of the country is opened up in the last five days and it's just amazing and what that's done for us and to be able to put so many people back to work. and i really think by, we're waiting for governor cuomo to open up new york city. he's the one who says i want there to be a new york for people to come back to, but we'll open up all of our restaurants in new york city

again and we have more than anybody else, but there's a lot of people that aren't going to open up and it's extremely disappointing because it's time to open up at least 25% in new york city. but the consumer is coming back. i'm telling you, where we can do business, we're doing business and this is going to be the roaring '20s you can just see it and we're putting all this new stimulus money out there, and who does that help? i mean, believe it or not, it helps my casinos and me. i live off the consumer. >> i believe it. >> so you know what? if joe biden wants to give all this stimulus, y'all go right ahead. we'll take it. >> you know what else joe biden wants to do is to raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour i'm torn on this one first of all, the idea of a national minimum wage, costs of living varies so much across the country. cities to rural areas, et cetera but in this pandemic, we have seen companies adjust to different situations when it

comes to cost and chasing opportunity. would it be so bad if the minimum wage were generally higher, $15 or whatever, wouldn't it force, yes, maybe fewer jobs but the people who get the jobs to do a better job? might that be a good thing >> yeah. i mean, john, you're so on it. i mean, you analyzed it so well. that how can you compare the minimum wage in houston, texas, to san francisco or new york where the cost of living is 35% more than it is here in the south? so why would you have to say minimum wage i don't have any problem with raising the minimum wage we need to retool our companies. 5 or 6 years and i also think somebody in high school who's got a part-time job or 19 years old working for the summer, it shouldn't be the same minimum wage as some gentleman that's 30

years old that's working at mcdonald's i feel like there should be a training wage that is under a certain age or then also an i am an adult trying to support my family and then you have to have the tip credit for waiters you can't pay a dishwasher $15 an hour and a waiter $15 an hour but the waiter's also walking home with $300, $400, $500 a night, which i'm thrilled they do, but you have to have the tip credit for tipped employees. so important >> sounds like there's some room in here for some smart adjustments if this bipartisanship thing we're hearing so much about works out. tilman fertitta, always great to have you on tuesdays or any day. >> thank you so very much, guys. pot stocks are surging we'll bring you the details next plus, polaris earnings revving up

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beyond meat definitely making a power move signing a deal with pepsico on a joint venture they're going to work on plant-based snacks and beverages. saying they want to combine beyond meat's innovation with pepsi's distribution expertise beyond meat stock up nicely but well beyond the highs of the day. aren't most snacks plant-based corn, potatoes, is this plant-based jersey but that's not the question. it's about the stock. >> i think it's a win-win for pepsi and beyond meat. they get into this business in a pretty big way and that is the fastest growing piece in the food service and business in general. this just gives them size, scale and distribution they've now made deals with mcdonald's, taco bell, dunkin brands should it be up this much off today's news not so much, but i'm glad what they're doing. >> led by tilray to provide cannabis to france's national

health agency for research and then working on cbd products for pets what to do with pot stocks here? >> i think you want to be very selective but one thing i think you'll see is continued m&a and i think it's going to be led by tilray also a force to be reckoned with so this is the growth trade, right? growth is on, values down. so these stocks are working. >> growth indeed stephanie, thank you. ahead on "power lunch," we're revving up for a new year. we're going to speak with the ceo of polaris about motorcycle demand and the company's earnings results plus, bitcoin falling back down to around 30,000. what's causing that hiccup we'll ask coin share chairman danmy ny masters next.

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welcome back, everybody. i'm sue herera here's your cnbc covid update at this hour. cdc researchers say there's little evidence schools have contributed meaningfully to the spread of covid. especially when they require masks and physical distancing. some infections have, however, been traced to indoor athletics, especially wrestling and the cdc recommends schools to postpone those programs

in the last half hour, california announced it will be taking more control over who gets vaccine shots due to delays caused by each county having its own delivery system. white house press secretary jen psake said biden will talk with governors later today about steps the administration is taking to increase the shipment of vaccines. "the washington post" said states will be getting 16% more vaccine next week. and a florida paramedic charged with stealing about 30 doses of the vaccine. the paramedic said his supervisor told him do and that person is facing arrest. >> the end of the day, they knew better and they violated the rules and the checks and balances in the systems were in place. that's why they got caught and why they did, it is just absolutely beyond us >> you are up to date, john. i'll send it back to you. >> sue, thank you. now to an earnings mover

shares of polaris jumping to a record high earlier as fourth quarter earnings beat estimates led by strengths in snowmobiles and boat retail sales. morgan brennan with the company's interim ceo. >> thanks, john. here for a "power lunch" exclusive, mike, it's great to have you on. i think this is your first time with us. >> thanks for having us on. >> strong fourth quarter numbers. strong guidance for coming into this year as well. i mean, perhaps not that surprising given the fact that we know the pandemic has been a boon for outdoor activities. people wanting to get out of their houses and we see that translating into polaris' numbers with growth across the board. how do you expect that to continue how do you continue to fuel that demand this year >> well, the growth that we saw coming out of last year was really accelerating as we got into the back half now, we've put a relatively conservative forecast together

we think retail for the year is going to be down in 2020 about 8% but when you look back to 2019, we're actually up about 15%. so we're accounting for the fact that there was a surge that really started in q2 of 2020 where we saw a retail of about 57%. look, the consumer is strong as these lockdowns and the delay in the vaccine rollout happen, people continue to turn to the outdoors and we're incredibly well positioned, whether it's boats, snowmobiles or offer vehicles and motorcycles we continue to see that play out. i made a comment about even though we have retail projected to be down for the year, january retail, although it is a small part of the year, is significantly outpacing our expectations, so i think that's a good sign to start off the year >> i want to get into that more in a second but the other piece of the puzzle is the supply side dealer inventory is down 58%

lowest level in decades. is that just a product of how strong the demand is or is this also supply chain constraints given the interruptions we saw to production lines last year due to covid >> it's a little bit of both back when the covid surge started to happen, we either voluntarily or involuntarily had to shut down a number of our manufacturing facilities and so we had our plants down anywhere from two weeks to a month and a half and once we're able to get back up and running, the plan running at full tilt but the surge in demand at our dealerships already happened, so we're starting to play catch-up from the start we saw disruption starting in the supply base. they had to ramp up two or threefold just to keep up with the pace of our volume we've had to step in a couple of instances to help them through that process and then i think as many other probably talked about on your show, we continue to see higher freight rates, the ports are jammed

in fact, hopeful that this year, things would start to improve and we see the port situation worsening a little bit and so we're running around the clock trying to make sure we can get as much product into the field to make sure the dealers have what they can to sell >> mike, it was a terrific quarter. market share growth across the board. very, very impressive. especially in the face of the supply constraints that you were just talking about i guess my question is, do you think that the market share growth that you're seeing in north america as well and all the products, is that going to continue with the pace that it's already doing now or how do you forecast for that? >> i mean, that's our plan, i think early on in the year, some of our competitors really benefitted from the fact they had way too much inventory in the channel and we were in a process of trying to rebuild that inventory fourth quarter is when everybody was playing on a level playing field and i think you saw a difference in the scale and the operating performance of our company. we use what's called retail flow

management the system we put in place over the last couple of years and it's really geared at making sure we can get dealers the product they need quickly. steve mane tta did a terrific j with his team to work with mechanisms getting product to details. meaning we can identify product to different dealerships and move it around the region. we activated a more aggressive presold, so about 5% of our product would leave pre-sold, and now that number is closer to 30%. that allows the dealer to be able to capture the sale and the consumer to be able to see when they're going to get access to that product and then really, on the supply chain side, i think we have the best team in power sports that can tackle all the issues we have and that showed up in how fast we were able to deliver product from the factories to the dealers to ensure they were able to move it to the customer. >> mike, i think we have to leave the conversation there, but it was great to speak with you today and appreciate you coming on "power lunch."

>> thank you for having me. >> thank you, morgan for stopping by. one more big dow component is reporting today microsoft is due out after the bell that stock hitting an all-time high today our traders going to weigh in ahead of those results use a single hr software? nope. we use 11.

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know your health. know yourself. order now at letsgetchecked dot com welcome back to "power lunch. i'm seema mody microsoft surging the a record high ahead of earnings and wall street is expecting the run to continue there's currently no analyst with a sell rating on the stock. let's dive deeper with mark teper of strategic wealth partners this is a stock that continues to get fueled by the growth that microsoft is seeing in cloud,

computing and video gaming but is there one thing that ceo could say that would make you less inclined to own the stock here >> less inclined put me in a tough position here. so i'm going to go with linkedin isn't working, right because the way i feel about it, one of microsoft's best features right now is linkedin. the fact that linkedin has replaced door to door sales peel the people it's a hold for us but slightly underweight. we are all well aware of this work from home culture zoom, those are all long-term trends switching your company's meetings over to zoom or microsoft teams, that was a quick move, but big companies realizing they need to upgrade their old legacy i.t. footprint to make it hybrid. that will persist for a few years and microsoft is number one in hybrid cloud. not a lot i think i'm going to hear on the call i think a winner for most people in their portfolio. >> a winner it has been for the

bulls, de la kno ed what should investors be aware of ahead of earnings >> the cloud computing growth. that's something we really like with microsoft we also like the environment, trends well for the cloud computing, high-tech and that's what microsoft is great at we also like the video game area the video game segment, smaller with a lot of growth potential we look at the new platforms and systems that were released also see the growth in e-sports, the growth in virtual reality gaming those are things microsoft will take advantage of in the future and we really like those trends. >> and microsoft in the spotlight after the bell today mark and delano, thank you for joining me for more industrial reports to watch, tradingnation.cnbc.com. >> always good to get windows into the stock bitcoin falling down from

the highs set all the way back on the 8th of january but up from the year. have they turned to gamestop instead in once again take years to get back to that high we'll talk to nnday masters, executive chair of coinshares on "power lunch" next

it has been and continues to be a wild ride for bitcoin cryptocurrency is now down about 18% from its record high of more than 40,000. coin shares still reported record inflows last week as it looks like investors are buying the dip. the firm seeing close to $2 billion this year alone, that's 25% of their entire total for all of 2020. joining me now to discuss, coin shares chairman, danny masters dane, i bet this isn't how you expected to start 2021 what do you attribute this to? >> well, hi, john, and stephanie. it was a phenomenal end to 2020 for us and an explosive start to the newier there was obviously a lot of pn up interest that accumulated over the holiday period and

unleashed on the marketplace very early in the new year and making that new hi i think investors are looking at four things. investors of all kinds are come to this marketplace in increasing importance and increasing size. they are looking at the short-term dynamic, which is around the macro picture, institutional outflows, outstricken coin supply, concerns about monetary debasement, and looking for a sort of enduring store of value. secondly, the portfolio diversification effects of bitcoin are becoming ever more clear to the sophisticated institution investor and on behalf of their respective clients. crypto as hole, and bitcoin in particular, and an here yum also are very inspirational for the young generation i think sort of a new age of banking is going to include

those kind of people just for demographic reasons but also these kind of products finally, and i think most importantly, you know, on the horizon, something i try to focus on is this concept of digitization, driverless banks, and distribution and that will really serve to replumb the national system. >> hi, danny i have question about the central bankers and how they are starting to create cryptocurrencies a. least they are talking about it how do you think the competition to bitcoin -- how is that going the play out, in your view >> i think it's actually credibly supportive for bitcoin. at the top of the 3d thesis that i just briefly outlined is digitization we have seen digitization in terms of bitcoin we have seen digitization in terms of precious metals there are many currencies now that have been digitized both on a private and a state level.

and when you add central bank digital currencies into the digitization top of funnel, then in environment and this ecosystem gets a lot bigger very quickly. and the benefits for those central banks are really profound and i think the projects that we are seeing, at least six or eight meaningful projects, one in operation already, that's going to stimulate the entire ecosystem. >> among those four things you mentioned driving bitcoin prices you didn't mention investor appetite for risk. when i look at some of the stocks like game stop which had been in the past been heavily shorted that are popular, when i look at what he is la has done, when i look at ipo etf performance that seems to tell me part is of what driving investors in general is a willingness to take on risk. how much of that is in bitcoin is there any way hedging that >> yeah. well, that's a great question.

having been this the commodity markets for many, many years myself, and viewing bitcoin momentarily as a commodity, which it can be viewed as on one level the secular trend in all of these commodity is volatility diminishes with time. in the '80s, gold had 6% annualized volatility. what we have been seeing in bitcoin is sort of a slow but steady not straight line, but wavy line deline in volatility and really, you know, bitcoin is now moving, you know, from what was a class of one in terms of volatility, over 100% annualized back into what i described as the high end of volatility so it has always been a high vol asset. it is actual low coming back into line now and i think that's actually giving investors who appetite for bitcoin. >> finally, what do you think it means that university endowments

are buying bitcoin maybe it speaks to the idea that volatility is flattening out but i don't think of big risk when i think of them i guess they are supposed to have portfolio diversity. >> well, you know, university endowments of a very welcome addition to the family of investors coming -- to high quality kind of investor, very thoughtful, very knowledgeable, very resourced i think they are looking at exactly the things i said before the short-term set up is good. the portfolio diversification benefits are very clear. there is generational aspect to it which obviously, you know, universities are by definition sort of young environment. but i think for those kind of sophisticated large long term investors it is this idea of digitization, driverless banks, and distribution that they can kind of get their heads around and see how important this is going to be in the five and ten years ahead of us. well, it certainly has been such

an important asset story people are paying attention to it bitcoin, and you guys pay a lot of attention as well danny masters, thank you. >> thank you. meanwhile, president biden continuing to enact his legislative agenda earlier we saw him sign executive orders focused on racial equity. tomorrow we expect the focus to be on climate. kayla tausche has more details kayla, not just executive action here, but legislative as well? well, i believe these are going to be executive orders, john, that the white house is readying on energy and climate policy one an extension to limits of drilling on federal lands. and a second, a directive for the securities and exchange commission to write regulations on disclosures for companies, sustainability programs otherwise known as esg according to two people who are briefed on these issues one or both of these orders could be included in the climate policy

rollout we expect tomorrow from the white house. the "washington post" and the "wall street journal" first reported on the extensions to the potential limits on drilling on federal lands and we are awaiting exact details on what that will look like but opposition is already forming from republicans before these policies are even announced. house republican leaders sent letter to the white house this afternoon criticizing a potential permanent moratorium of drilling on a federal land saying in the middle of an economic crisis your administration is prioritizing virtual signaling over a paycheck they call it knee jerk they are saying if this moratorium were made permanent it would cost $1 million jobs, $7 million in gdp, and millions of bears in oil re >> thank you, kayla. sounds like the policy agenda might be threatening the legislative agenda

we will see what happens to bipartisanship. stephanie we have been talking about the heavily shorted stocks game stock is up some 74% today again. >> i mean this is such speculation. i know it is more than short interest covering. maybe it is perhaps people are trying to put the fund story together with the shortcoming. that would be you have an activist in there. and going from physical to digital stores i don't get it it seems strange to me and it is part of the market where you are seeing bubble. something to watch. >> also something to watch, microsoft, one of the highest valued stocks in the market. what are you listening for there this afternoon >> azure, 41% year over year growth that's the bogey that's the number one everyone wants to see we already know pcs from gardener, looks like 9% year over year greta. we expect pcs to be strong i think it is going to be a good

report, though. >> pcs, also looking to hear what they have to say about gaming it was a big holiday season for them there and as we head toward the final hour of trade a look at the major indices, they are all just about flat the dow up about 45 points the s&p up just 2.5. thank for watching "power lunch. "closing bell" starts right now. >>well to "closing bell," i'm sara eisen along with wilfred frost. stocks, another choppy session, major indecemberese back this the green. what's driving the action, one hour left of trade strong earnings from 3m, j&j supporting egts today. overall positive headlines on vaccines and stimulus negotiation continue to provide tail winds for the market. we are awaiting more detail on the stimulus side. another wild swing in game stop as it continues to be the