we've got a big market sell-off on wall street to end the week check out the major averages, all down a little more than 2% stocks on track for the worst week in three months all of the sectors are lower, both energy and technology leading the declines

gamestop and bitcoin bucking that trend today more on that in a minute let's get to bob pisani on this market action bob? >> four to one declining-to-advancing stocks, take a look, the good news is we are off the lows that is the lower levels since early january. if we closed here the dow would be down. we're off of the lows right now. in terms of what's up with the markets? there seems to be an inverse correlation with the gamestop short squeeze story. overall, as it gets more traction or play, we seem to be taking down overall exposure, where you reduce overall

exposure there's some vague concerns about potentially higher margin risks that may be coming down the road i think that's certainly on the market as well i don't sense this -- the vaccine story is intact, the stimulus story is intact, have been very, very good credit seems to be holding up very well. it seems to be idiosyncratic around this whole short squeeze story, as you can see. take a look at the shorts here gamestop, 265 to maybe 414 or so it's been all over the place, but some of the other shorts also working today bed bath & beyond, amc, express, even koss down here. this is a weekly stocks expiration day individual stocks have been trading on a weekly basis for several years now. normally it's not an issue, nobody talks about it. it could be today, giving how much in the money gamestop options have had it was a $40 stock a week ago. if you bought a $50 option, at

this point a call option is worth a lot of money that could caught a lot of money to move around at the end of the day. the options expire at the end of trading today. we'll keep an eye on all of that, of course. >> look at though percentages, bob. gamestop, we just had them on the screen so many double digits, but high double-digits percentages. gamestop up 51%. amc you want 45, express 21, koss 78? white house. >> remember, it was a $40 stock last week, jon. >> i remember. you know, individual investors, be careful things go up, things go down it's probably not over let abring in lindsey belle for her thoughts on today's sell-off bob pisani talking about the short squeeze, but 2% on all the

major indices? you think that's what this is? >> what we are seeing today is a big move it got deeper into the ofafterno here it's the end of the week, end of the month. investors have been looking and searching for a reason to derisk or just, you know, see a pullback in the market when we came going into this week, actually what we say was the s&p 500 was up about 17.5% since the beginning of november. that's a big, fast move for the market we saw it got stretched from the 200-day moving average on a technical perspective, so at 15% off the 200-day moving average, that's a far distance, and of course people are starting to talk about valuations getting stretched, 23 times, sure, that's higher than historical standards, but we've been in

that realm for many months now so i just think that people are using this speculation as a reason to take some money off the table right now, wait for things to digest and until we have more clarity about the future of the economic recovery looks like, because there is a bit of uncertainly with that south african virus coming into the u.s., the j & j news today so we're back to november levels there's just a lot of nervousness in the market, jon >> is it too different -- and granted veries different things going on -- we don't know to what degree it's retail investors, but you've got some people started off retail investors that are squeezing shorts on one side you think it's entirely different, a large cohort of people on the other side reacting to that

>> you know, it very well could be, it sounds like at least the sentiment from the retail investors going into this week was pretty positive. they were feeling good about the stoke latif trades that they were making that you've been talking about all week here. so i think you have to see some of the big money on the other side to see they bigger moves we're seeing in some of these stocks, too. you have to remember, too, earnings season has been very good because of that it might be a reason for the big boys to derisk and take that money off the table right now. the retail investor might not quite understand that dynamic, and they're watching they penny stocks that done well in the past mount and they feel like they're in a good position, too. so i think time will only tell to see whose hands are being shaking out at this time. >> we have a $11 billion quarter

from this week, and stock is down 5% for the week let us bring in our guests to talk about the crowd democrat sourcing power of social media all crated this perfect storm this week. is the selling we're seeing today a symptom of that? we've been asking that question. we're going to talk more about it with david brown, ceo and chairman of victory capital. what's your read of what the market is doing on a friday? we haven't seen this move to end for quite a while, and what does it have to do with the volatility we're seeing? >> first of all, thanks for having me on the show. look, it's one day if you think you have to pull the charts back and take a longer-term view, the market has had a really, really strong run-up over the last year, over the last few quarters, and as

your guests said earlier, there's a lot of good news out there. >> sorry, dave, i've got to cut you off. moments ago we heard from the president. here it is. [ inaudible >> okay. we don't have -- we don't have audio here with the president, but he is speaking outside the white house before heading to walter reed to visit with wounded service members. you can see him there outside the white house with his mask on i don't think of i don't believe we're going to get audio on this tape kayla tausche, i believe, from washington we have with us what can you tell you about the president? >> reporter: well, he's going to

visit wounded service members at walter reed. it's a special place to the biden family his late son beau underwent treatment there, and biden in that video was talking about how his family spent every christmas day visiting with the families and children being treated at walter reed. he answered a question from the press pool before that departure about the prospects for the $1.9 trillion package that his administration has floated and prospect for a bipartisan bill he said that it needs to pass no ifs, ands or buts, and it's still his preference to pass a bipartisan package, but next week congress will start a package that would only require democratic support and could get around. >> reporter: support, but certain he's keeping his options open the number one priority is to

pass something and pass it soon. >> kayla, what is the carrot here for republicans i've been hearing quite a bit of disappointment on the gop side, in the way that the biden administration and the democrats have been pursuing this thus far? >> reporter: i think the carrot is the consideration of where the virus is sent there's a light at the end of the title as far as several veecks on the market, but the administration is suggesting, hey, you have full bipartisan support back in march when the virus was a fraction of the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths that it is now. so we need to pass another bill to try to get this under control, and if the economy is only going to worsen if they don't put money in people's pockets and fund things like schools, small businesses, and frontline workers.

now, that being said, many republicans have made the argument this money is not yet in the economy from the last package we passed at the end of last year. wait until that trickles through and then we'll see what we need. further, jon, one of the complicating factors, i was talking to one with a line in sight of the ppp process, the demand for forgivable loans is 30% lower than expected. so people are saying there's not the rush of demand as there was last spring. certainly the administration is making the argument the economy needs this money and needs to get on strong footing before it can move on to other priorities. >> we'll see what that shelf life looks lick for bipartisan ship dave brown, we were talking about the market you've got to ask, covid and covid relief has played a role in market action in the past

is the market going to take a signal from where le get bipartisan agreement or not? >> first, i think you are going to get something in the market by the administration. i think it will be positive. versions of the vaccine are coming, and my opinion is there's a lot of pent-up demand. people want to get out and spend money. if the stimulus is passed, people have money in their pockets. i think this will be all positive for the market. today's action is really about people pulling money off the table, because they made a lot of money over the last year. they have to roll back the charts and look at some of the stocks that are down today, and the market that's down today, it's close to the all-time highs. >> true. >> so i'm bullish on the market, and i think that, you know,

there will be something that's done, whether it's the full 1.9, whether it's $1400 of stimulus for each person, something will get done. >> one area we have seen potential for bipartisanship is dealing with the markets and what we saw happened with robin hood we had alexandria ocasio-cortez and ted cruz agreeing they should look into this things what do you think will happen? >> who would have figured those two would agree, right i think you're going to see an evaluation by regulators, but the s.e.c. they're going to look at short selling. they're going to look at all of the actions that have shaped there will be an investigation there will be hears, what will come of it will probably be very

little our markets today or functioning. our markets are healthy. what's happening in a dozen stocks is in 25 years of being in this industry, i've never seen anything like it, but it's a very small portion of the stock market i think longer term this will be a point in time, and i think, you know, if there is regulation that comes with this, i hope it's around transparency but the thing that people are not talking about is, a great thing is happening more people are interested in the equity market. we have young people interested in the equity market we have people who are teenagers, 10, 11-year-olds looking at social media on how do i invest? they need to be educated, have transparency, and it needs to be a fair platform, but getting more people into the market is a

real positive. >> hey, it's lindsey here, jon i'm just wondering, what do you think about how companies will react going forward? we have seen in the past year some big stock accomsplits, like apple and tesla, but we haven't seen a lot of them i'm wondering how you think corporations will react to retail investors getting into the market we have also seen a huge uptick in trading in small-cap stocks in general i'm wondering how the retail investor's participation will impact the way different corporate financial, cfos, management teams look at their capital structure. >> you know, i think it's too early to tell how it will impact cfos and capital management policies

i think when you evaluate what has happened a week or two weeks, it's hard to say it's run the course what you do know is there are a lot more retail investors in the market their access today is better than it's ever been, and i think, you know, the more retail investors that are in the market, the healthier the market will be, and i think the cfos and corporations will adjust i have great faith in a healthy market short sellers, retail investors, they will figure it out. it's what makes the market here, people with different pins so i think it's too early to tell how exactly it impacts the capital management policy of the cfos

but i'm not concerned longer term about that. >> well, dave brown, thank you for that insight dave brown from victory capital. coming up, we'll have more on this market sell-off, bitcoin climbing hire after elon musk fuels the flames. hedge funds have taken a beating this week. we'll dive into thdagee ma of the gamestop more "power lunch" ahead

welcome back bitcoin rocketing higher, as elon musk added bitcoin to his twitter handle joining me to discuss the moves in bitcoin is partner at hightower. mike, i ask a lot of people, and maybe you can tell me about your strategy and insight around bitcoin, how it traits, when and why you buy it i'm heard the argument it inexorably goes higher, but there are these moments. why is it doing what you're doing --

>> i'm blocktower, not hightower. >> i'm sorry elon adding bitcoin to his profile, it could be assuming he's a nouns a personal purchase it may have been algorithms market bitting anytime something like that shows up as well represented as elon musk you can't take these moves and kind of take them for granted. you have to understand that a lot of these hyper-voluatile ar likely short-lived, so you need to see a rebasing before you get comfortable. kriismt os and corporate leaders are still very much engage in this space, so this seems like

one big distraction. if you think about bitcoin it's evolving as it's corporate own asset, and i mean, listen, i suppose they're fine trading vehicles i think the financial market we've seen last week is more of a distraction than anything else >> so when it goes down, why is that typically, do you think, and what's your strategy around either buying more or not during those periods of time? >> yeah, the drawdowns, in many instances they're unsurprising what you said to see is an unsustainable spot, and in significant run-up, if you're pulling market data from particular exchanges, you can see leveraged bids in the market in traditional financial, when i wassal goldman, you're looking for flows, if a particular

broker/dealer was dealing, you could see that you can see relative exchanges are bidding up a price moth of thatis derivative-led, and they lead us through these levels you would have otherwise sold looking at a technical. you know that move may be less sustainable than one you saw us at that level and kind of strengthen higher. you can reposition to take perhaps some capital off the table or replace bitcoin spot market or one delta with options, where you can take some cash off the table, but maintain that exposure. >> hey, mike, how do you view regulation on bitcoin and the crypto market in general we're already starting to see some commentary come out from the occ, fin sen, and i wonder

how i you think this would affect the futures as well, and how are you viewing that >> long term, all substantially positive i think what we have seen thus far has been reasonably well thought out. in instance where is it hasn't been well thought out, the cryptocommunity has banded together with constructive dialogue with regulators obvious obviously we've seen regulatory criteria, and then when you talk about things like decentralized finance, which i think if occupy wall street was the grounding moment for bitcoin, and i remember walking out the building at goldman and say this is an interesting movement and a year later you sawbitcoin emerge, so if this

is the grounding moment for what i think may become a movement for decentralized infrastructure so the battle shouldn't be robin hood or gamestop the battle should be innovation and evolving the infrastructure to become more decentralized, but also alongside that i think financial literacy become becomes more important we're -- blocktower is in this 24 hours a today, 7 days a week and even for under the circumstances sometimes it's a bit much to take in. >> that would be the tagline for the week, for sure mike bucel lla, thank you. shares of united airlines, it has announced it sent out about 14,000 warned layoff notices, because they have to go out at least in 60 days of

advance when somebody may be laid off the current payroll support ends on march 31st it doesn't take a rocket science to figure out the airline business is as bad as it was in the fourth quarter, maybe even worse if being does not improve come march 31st, then united and other airlines are going to make tough decisions whether or not to once again lay off employees. it has let a little over 14,000 workers know they could be laid off again come march 31st. also looking at shares of american airlines. american has not sent out warning noise yes, but don't be surprised. they have to make a decision in a week, and they were asked --

and given the fact that this business has not improved, guys. guys, back to you. still ahead, stocks are lower across the board utilities and health care holding up the best. we will have more, right after a quick break.

i have an idea for a trade. oh yeah, you going to place it? not until i'm sure. why don't you call td ameritrade for a strategy gut check?

what's that? you run it by an expert, you talk about the risk and potential profit and loss. could've used that before i hired my interior decorator. voila! maybe a couple throw pillows would help. get a strategy gut check from our trade desk. ♪♪ some see a grilled cheese sandwich and ask, “why?” i see a new kitchen with a grill and ask, “why not?” i really need to start adding “less to cart” and “more to savings.” sitting on this couch so long made me want to make some changes... starting with this couch. yeah, i need a house with a different view. and this is the bank that will help you do it all. because at u.s. bank, our people are dedicated to turning your new inspiration into your next pursuit.

welcome back we've got a significant sell-off on wall street right now the dow is down 550 months checking the individual components, only mcdonald's is higher, and not by much. the decline is pretty broad. lindsey, i'm looking along this above row, i mentioned apple i also see home depot, microsoft. apple and microsoft, titans that had strong earnings in recent days is this sell the winners sell the titans? >> i feel like it might be sell the titans it's confusing what i have noticed is when we

do have red days like this, you usually see some of the tech names hold up better, simply because they became defensive over the course of the pandemic. it's sings to see those down the most so the tech sector in general has been out of favor for a little while you saw inflation comes in just slightly 1.5% on the core side. i'm wondering if investors are clinging to that as a reason for a risk off right now, or if it's simply the speculation that is really driving -- has been driving the market crazy all month. >> a big picture, does this tell

you anything about the market, when you have a name like an apple that has this amazing quarter at the size that it is, and yet ends the week down -- well, we don't know how it will end up, but right now it's down 4% >> yeah. it definitely catches your eye, for sure it's a huge component of the s&p 500, which is a market cap-weighted index, but if you look at the s&p 500 equal weight index over the course of the past three months or so, it's outperformed the s&p 500 by seven percentage points. to me there's a rotation going on in the market underneath of the hood, you have seeing some good trends occur. so that's a healthy rotation we're seeing in the marketplace today. of course we're seeing a moves toward defensive consumer staples is an area i've been looking at, on a price

basis, but also on a valuation basis. these companies can do well if you think inflation may get hot for a little while >> i'm looking at disney, also down more than 2%. we're going to continue to keep our eye there, but also on viral stocks that continue their rally today, despite this sell-off in the overall market after the break, we're going to look at who exactly is driving this reddit revolt on wall street and also the traders' took on what this means for stocks going forward. we'll be right back. for smarter trading decisions. fidelity.

it's moving day. and while her friends are doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. it only takes about a minute. wait, a minute? but what have you been doing for the last two hours? delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today.

. welcome back, everybody. i'm sue herera california's governor hayes signed legislation extending the eviction moratorium to limit the spread of the new covid variants -- after their own expense, for up to three days as

they wait for a covid test, those who test positive will be quarantined in government facilities justin trudeau is trying to encourage residents to stay home, but making it harder to escape the cold weather. >> the government and canada's main airlines have agreed to spanned destinations to sun desti destinations they are cancelling air services to air caribbean destinations and mexico, starting this sunday, up until april 30th. >> jon, back to you. the games continue today and high one against on the

broader markets, but what is behind this? i love the cultural look you took here. people are saying this is good, retail investors getting involved do you think they're in this based on your conversations, for the long term? >> they're definitely trading in the long term. whether or not they're in gamestop for the long term remains to be seen these are people -- it's an incredibly impassioned community. some of them are trading for sure, but some are pretty serious. >> over the past 12 months i've seen moments that caught my eye. one was back around march when stocks absolutely tanked there seems to be some interest

there. ed friends on facebook this is different, right >> it's sort of similar, putting small amounts of money toward the trades, feeling like maybe there's an opportunity in the market right now, but i think what happened, especially with gamestop, it's something broader. that's largely come into trading in different years through apps like robin hood. i think we're just starting to see the power in the market. >> i wondered, too, itstarted off, at least the justification was backlash against hedge funds. toward the end of the week it back lashed against robin hood is this cohort of new other newer or more excited investor trust anybody? >> they're certainly not going to trust robin hood after what

happened this week the company has basically shattered all hope that they were on the side of these retail traders? >> really? >> there's a tweet i saw going around from 2016 that's with el known now, that's "let the people trade." that's exactly what they weren't doing for a time i think it shook confidence. all right. we'll see. robin hood is still the number one top three app. kate >> robin hood once again reducing the amount of securities that customers can buy on the platform. this morning they reopened trading of names like gamestop they are reducing the amounts of

shares from five shares from a list -- amc, gamestop, koss, bed bath & beyond, and american alliance they just updated that blog post to update customers here they did open that up again today. jon, back to you you did say amc? >> yes, that's right >> we had amd up on the screen i wanted folks to make sure it's amc, one of those stocks heavily shorted. >> yes >> robin hood traders were piling into. it makes one wonder, lindsey, especially after the mea culpa we heard from robin hood's ceo lost night, talking about opening up trading, we wondered if they were going to mend fences how will the robin hood traders take this?

>> i think any trader stuck in this situation will be frustrated, but at the same time some of these smaller brokerages is where we're seeing a lot of customers want to go to start trading because they are offering a different experience. so for taylor to say robin hood is down and out, i don't know that that's necessarily going to be the case. there's certainly other options for others to consider, but it's something that they'll have to take into consideration when they're moving forward when you're thinking about also trading in stocks that are this heavily trafficked in. >> i'm going to watching the levels on gamestop and amc particularly last time we saw real

restrictions from robin hood, they were affected so far it doesn't look like they have been intraday you don't knee the vix to tell you we've seen a lot of volatility our traders will break it down, next on "power lunch

♪♪ this is what community looks like. ♪♪

caring for each other, ♪♪ protecting each other. ♪♪ and as the covid vaccine rolls out, we'll be ready to administer it. ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of everyday life events, seen and heard in reverse] ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of fedex planes and vehicles engines] ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of children laughing and running, life moving forward] . welcome back to "power lunch. as we watch the gamestop short squeeze, take a look at the market's volatility gauge, on pace for the biggest weekly gain since last june.

remember, the volatility index is a former-looking barometer for future moves is this flashing a warning sign in let's bring in the "trading nation" team craig, you've been looking at the charts you know, such parties have come next to big turning points in the market, so what does the vix tell where you the equity market is headed. it's up 62%, that is the third highest serve, anytime we've seen a shorter -- it's been a pretty strong risk, you know, seema with the affect we've -- and you've got a lot to do the

speculation. there's a lot of reasons why we should be heeding this warning and at least tactively raising some cash and tactically rotating the portfolios to be more cautious in the near term. >> is there a way to play this if volatility is on rise do you buy any high-speed trading platform that did pretty well when volatility was on the rise last year >> absolutely. volatility equals volume volume will increase, which might get market makers, brokers, i've contributed my share of profits to them for sure, i think they'll all do very, very well. i tuckedly agree with greg, that the investment x is an important signal, when you look at the surrounding data, today was the first time i've seen bond yields up, equity prices down.

that's a signal the market is getting concerned about credit risk certainly we may be setting up ourselves for at least a 5% correction, maybe even more, especially when we go into february, which seems to be a sell-off time in the market. buckle up. for more check out our website we just had that discussion. jon, back to you. seema, we want to show you this now as an example of what's happening in the market. apple and microsoft, huge market caps around $2 trillion, each of them getting hit, dragging down the broader market indices, but so-called meme stocks are back today. we're all over these markets stay with us

♪ ♪ ♪ digital transformation has failed to take off. because it hasn't removed the endless mundane work we all hate. ♪ ♪ ♪ automation can solve that by taking on repetitive tasks for us. unleash your potential. uipath. reboot work.

area homeowners learn how your neighbors are accessing $100,000s with a reverse mortgage loan from the bay area's #1 reverse mortgage lender. lemme tell you something. i wouldn't be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior. or worse, that it was some way to take your home.

a reverse mortgage loan isn't some kind of trick to take your home. it's a loan like any other. big difference is how you pay it back. discover if a reverse mortgage loan is right for you. use it to eliminate monthly mortgage payments pay of credit card bills, medical costs and more. with a reverse mortgage you can pay whatever you can when it works for you, or you can wait and pay it off in one lump sum when you leave your home. find out more, call aag for your free information kit i'm proud to be a part of aag. i trust 'em. i think you can too. call now! continue to sell off and the retail viral stocks continue to rally. here now to break down market action is fast money's tem see

more when you see names especially like apple and microsoft, market stall warts, their thesis intact after the earnings they just reported, blowout earnings, arguably, and the market is not moving higher at the end of the week, does that tell you anything about the market overall? >> hey, john, first of all, you are emphasizing the right thing. i mean these are stall warts for a reason we had reaffirmation of that this week. they are also very, very crowded trades and very much market proxy trades when you think about some concern -- whether this is a retail commune or a professional community, what folks should be doing during periods of stress and volatility in the market is simplifying and taking down gross. now you have to be careful not to selling -- cutting your flowers and keeping your weeds as they say. and clearly, microsoft and apple are flowers. but as a hedge fund manager, if you are taking -- if you are covering some shorts, you are also taking down longs but you are also taking down over

overall gross. to me it is not surprising to see the broader market collateral damage. and also at a time when people are using this moment to question some very, very frothy trades and i don't mean the amcs and the game stops i think that's a linchpin and a catalytic market overall. >> what kind of decline are you looking for here tim for investors to get more comfortable? are you looking for a certain number or spotin the index you are looking for specifically or is it something more related to vaccines, economic data, earnings >> right well, i think lindsey, first of all, people are looking at the s&p. they are looking at 2712 or so, which is right around where we are. today is the 50 day. we traded through there for a few days in october. i think the underlying principles that are supporting the market here -- i think this is the moment to take a little bit of a breath.

markets were certainly doing some frothy thing. we talked about spacs, about the ipo calendar we talked about high multiple stocks three thing. equity positions in an historic sense is still relatively low. i think there is a lot of institutional buying that's going to come into the market overall. i don't think we are over our skis in terms of overall equity positioning. the second thing is where i realize covid headlines have not been great but we are nearer to the end of this than we are i think to the peak i am not going to put calendar months on it, obviously it is a painful time for our country and the world. but that's a tail wind for markets. finally, policy. the fed is not going anywhere, and i think the fiscal dynamics, whether it is less than when we expected or in line or more so are things that investors should be very focus on. >> tim, we certainly are focused on that, as well as the degree to which it is bipartisan. all of that probably signals

something for the market tim seymour thank you. we have got just about an hour left of trading in one of the wildest weeks we have seen an wall street in recent memory the broader markets getting slammed today. down about 2%. while reddit users continue to push up stocks like amc and game stop much more on these markets coming up. 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.

checking on the markets right now, still lower, though not quite as bad arizona they were when we started the hour. still down roughly 2%. the dow down about 558 points. the s&p down nearly 2% the nasdaq faring the worst. it is down 2%, lindsey, but next week is another week what are you looking forward to? >> yeah. it's another big earnings week, too. 106 s&p 500 companies reporting. two of the big ones i am going to be watching are going to be alphabet and amazon. they haven't done too much over the past two months, i would say. but the report that we got facebook showed strong ad spending i am looking forward to seeing what they say in google there, alphabet and amazon with the online selling season, holiday season, too, looking forward to see what kind of growth they had there. and of course the cloud war also

play in that conversation, too also health care, too. there is a lot of health care stocks reporting. we will see if earnings and fundamentals actually move the stocks you mentioned facebook and its strong report. it's down 2.5% today along with apple and microsoft, which we were just talking about. boy, you never know when the rules apply. lindsey, thank you that will do it for "power lunch. "closing bell" starts receipt now. >> it certainly does welcome to the "closing bell," everyone, i'm wilfred frost along with sara eisen. stocks falling to close out the week on what's become a very volatile few days of trading let's look at what's driving the action today we have got to start with the short squeezes and retail frenzy will continues to set the narrative, momentum plays like game stop, amc and bitcoin are rallying johnson & johnson and novavax had promising updates. it is the overall efficacy of th