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 the vaccines and new variants that's worrying investors.

earnings on a solid footing though many trading lower today. 59 minutes left in the session the dow is down 530. it was down nearly 750 at one point, sara. >> coming up on today's show, former goldman sachs cfo, martin chavez he wants to usury tail trading, the role of social media and how regulators should be looking at all of this. what's going to become of the market. plus, two crucially important data sets surrounding coronavirus vaccines have come out in the last 24 hours we will discuss the key take aways. what you need to know withb all of it with former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb. first the biggest story of the day and the week game stop, reddit and the short squeeze that took traders on wall street by storm joining us, mike santoli, kate

rooney, and list l-- leslie picker mike, start us off with the broader market. >> still unstable footing out there. the s&p 500 bounced off its lows around 1:00 p.m. twice was below 3700 found its footing there. then we have had a modest bounce what it did with the pullback. it got to a 4% decline and took us all the way back to early december levels. it is surprising that you could have swept away that murch of this grinding flael that short amount of time but that's how this usually goes the prospect for a pullback builds and builds and then you get it so far we are challenging the 50 day moving average assistant uptrend intact yes, it is, but it wouldn't be surprised to see things chopping around a little bit more

we have portfolios adapting to the idiosin of the contractic source of volatility i want the look at the bond market i think it is refusal. here in white is the high yield bond etf really not a lot of volatility here it has been steady around zero line all week. this is price of intermediate term treasuries. it declined. this is not turning into a macro environment, it is not disturbing credit risk or the economic environment as least by the bond market point of view. look at the stocks at the center of what's been doing on. the publicly traded retail brokered stocks have had a rough time of it this is just this month. interactive brokers, charles schwab this is broad ridge, this is a middle man they do clearing they also have comeoff not as dramatic moves. you would think with very high companies these companies would

be doing much better i put virtue in there, up 10% this month big run the last couple of weeks. electronics, comparable to citadel and the other other electronic mark making firms that handle the order flow >> the role of clearing houses in the week's frenzied action is being examined brokers are limiting some types of trading kate rooney has the details. >> robinhood made the decision two years ago to get rid of the middle man and clear and custody those trades in-house. i am told it was the first domino in what is key watch in restricting trades this week this at the time was a major investment and the ceo told me a couple years ago it would help them expand quickly. he likened it to.ael deciding to build its own chips or amazon investing on fulfillment

centers. robinhood settles and clears customer trades and provides custody for assets that also gives them a slice of the revenue behind trading it also raises the bar for how much money robinhood needs for in house to meet those capital requirements they need to send cash daily to the dtcc that can change on a dime based on trading volumes i am told the dtcc significantly raised the amount needed to have on hand for short calls including game stop. sequoia and ribbit had to tap their banks for a line of credit and told some customers they may need to close at-risk positions. want to get to leslie picker for another angle on the story,

the intense backlash is robinhood is facing as a result of all of this action this week. what's the latest. >> be roinhood putting ticker restrictions on a host of games once again after freeing those names for trading with limitations earlier. when robinhood did this yesterday users became enwaged distrustful of the company that promised to change how trades were made. they said they have to be able to post cash for fcc required deposits as the ceo said on cnbc yesterday, he assured the market there was no liquidity issue here, but it really does seem to be pulling all levers to get cash we have heard from sources they are drawing down hundreds of millions of dollars in credit lines from jp morgan and goldman

sachs. company raising $1 million from sequoia and ribbit now, earlier this month robinhood was deep in preparations for an ipo. i checked with sources on this, no surprise, these preparations have been deprioritized iffer the time pg being as robinhood tries to put out fires on a multitude of fronts. guys. >> at the same time, leslie, the regulators are saying we are paying attention, the lawmakers are starting to talk about holding hearings everyone is jumping on this. where does this go is it about regulating firms like robinhood more closely? maybe making them put up more capital? about finding market manipulation what are they after here >> you are right, and there is also a class action suit that has been filed against robinhood as well. clearly not a good time to be going public to your point, where do they go from here?

i have been talking to people about what needs to take place in terms of regulation, what are people looking for, what are people calling for part of it could be related to margin and leverage that's allowed on their platforms in order to ensure that they don't need to seek this kind of rescue financing in the future in order to make sure that they have a fortress of a balance sheet to, you know, kind of minimize the potential risk to the system so that's one thing to consider although i don't know if it is going to take place. it all depends on how these things really work out over the next weeks and months and maybe even years. >> kate is there any sign of what the next set of targets might be for the wall street bets chat group? clearly over the last couple of weeks it has been squeezing the shorts before that it may have been going long some key names like tesla and bitcoin. even if we don't see losses materialize, which some expect will be the case in the likes of

game stop, what happens in the next couple of months when all the sort of high-focus shorts have been squeezed what are they talking about their next target investments being? >> it tends to be some of these consumer names you have things like amc on there, and whatever is getting a lot of buzz in these chat rooms. regardless of the fundamentals, you might have something that attracts a lot of attention through a meme and it goes viral. it really is tough to say who the next target is, if it is not a hily shorted stock you have seen names like virgin galactic tesla have been on the list. companies that attracted consumer interest. peloton is another big one names people know and want to trade. it is part of the peter lynch school of thought, buy what you know

it is definitely helping right now on reddit. >> if retail traders walk away now they can say we won, we changed the game, made the stocks go up but they are honestly holding on and the stocks continue to surge. when does that stop? it can't go on forever is it when the options expires, when the companies report earnings which is expected to be next week, and it is not blowout numbers. and there are no fundamentals. when -- >> i think, et cetera impossible to determine how much would keep this price sustainable the average price for $3 game s is $320. in this community, whoever the buyers were it takes a lot to stay with that and a lot of

additional follow-on buying to satisfy that process to make it seem like a good bet usually that's why these things burn themselves out when they have gone up this much i don't think it is going to go away i think it is a feature of this public market. new enthusiasm, new tools. one of the things is that the volatility and the volume of the stocks that are overplayed is overwhelming the market for now. i think the most plausible and least satisfying and least popular position is that there are no heroes, no villains, it is just a phenomenon that played out in a very high friction way and probably we have to create new parameters around it. >> well said guys, thank you, mike, leslie and kate will all stay on it. after the break we will continue this conversation about the short squeeze frenzy, the rise of the retail trader and today's big selloff when we are joined by the former goldman sachs ceo. you are watching "closing bell."

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heavily shorted names that have become the darlings of social media investors this week like game stop and a, this c continue to climb even as the broader market sells off joining us now, martin chavez, former goldman sachs cfo martin, good afternoon to you. >> pleased to be here. >> we mentioned former cfo, also former head of trading, former head of technology, played a huge role in launching goldman's tech driven consumer facing features my first question is broad as in when we see unwinds, we started to see that on the hedge fund side for those that were squeezed and we may see it in a few weeks time for the people who are still long these names, can that bring down the entire market >> wilf, anything can happen, there is no probability zero or one, as you know i don't see that happening

the crucial point here is that the clearing house, dtcc is following its playbook and doing its job to make sure that all those trades clear and sell. >> so you are not that fearful overall then it seems like of a broader market pullback. on the point about the clearing houses, on the buoyant of some of the brokerages from robinhood to interactive, both ceos have been on our air in the last 24 hours. can you understand their decision to limit risk trading was that an understandable decision on their part. >> i am not in these markets these days but as a market professional for many years i know how the market works. it is important to step back and look at this and see that short squeezes have been with us since the beginning of capitalism. what is different this time is now we have the viral

amplification multiplication propagation of memes, thoughts, feelings through social media, through social trading platforms. and that, it seems, is exacerbating, it's speeding up the short squeeze, making them more violent. really important that all the market participants, i mean all, be properly capitalized for this kind of thing. otherwise w these business models that maximize user engagement because they are selling the aggregate user attention to somebody else -- those models, if untrammelled, if left unrestricted can rapidly erode the capital. the people who run the models have the benefits. society is left with the downside so crucial experience for regulators and politicians to work together, as they have done in the financial crisis. in the financial crisis, afterwards, banks were required to run stress tests and to hold a lot more capital and we saw during the pandemic that the

banks continued to lend, provide liquidity, do what they were supposed to do that kind of approach absolutely needs to be extended to big tech and people who have these kind of social trading business models >> i am glad you brought up the societal question. that's sort of where i wanted to go, marty. for so long, there were calls to meth get more retail investors and traders into the market, to have them join in. and also reap the benefits of a rising mark over years after the financial crisis is that a healthy way to do it are we going to look back on this week and decide that this was better or worse on that front? >> well, sara, i have been talking with some of my friends. one of my favorite people, jim espo about the parallels between political populism and capitalistic populism. right? so it's really important to intervene here in some way because we have entered into a really different regime from the one that we were used to

and just as we are sneeg these risk management decisions there needs to be capital in the system to account for these kind of extreme events. i am all in favor the democrat advertisation of finance my career i was all about as you know extending data analytics, margaret access and broadening that out while i support everybody's right to day trade stocks, i don't. i rebalance seven etfs three or four times a year. and that's what i recommend to everybody. so let's not call it investing it's gambling. with gambling come the downsides, the losses, the potential for addiction. so we need education we need a lot to go on here to fix this. >> when you take a snapshot, marty, at all that's happened at goldman, both when you were still there in a full-time role to now and engaging with the consumer and the great tech

platforms that exist, there is an offers next step here to do something like robinhood's wells with the goldman backing but the points you just made, the risk asks the gambling aspect, is it something that meaningfully, the company has purposely not taken a step towards? >> i will only talk about the strategy that i know from when i was add at goldman i have been away a little bit more than a year but it is part of something we are seeing very broadly in finance i will call it the api community. they are producing products and services, wrapping them in apis so others can access the apis, it has been part of the broadening the democratization what is important to keep in mind is there needs to be regulation the people who are producing some of these api submitted

themselves to tight regulation regulation is important because it curtails the excesses and makes sure that there is enough capital in the system so society and the system are safe when the extreme events happen. that is the whole point of the capital regulation the problem that we are seeing today is a symptom of the fact that that framework hasn't been extended broodly enough to social media and social trading. >> beyond that, marty, is it also a symptom of what's been going on in the market lately, these areas of real disconnect with economic and fundamentals we have seen it in the spac craze. the ipo voraciousness. and now this retail trading frenzy what does that tell but this kind of market that we are in? >> well, this seems to be something that happens in capitalism, right? it goes back to the south sea double right? it seems to be a feature of capitalism

and this is why i am a huge proponient of the kind of smart, thoughtful regulation that has been extremely effective post the financial crisis and as the world changes, as technology changes, as these new tools and platforms create this potential for viral propagation of ideas that didn't exist before, the regulatory regime needs to extend as well. but the same theme i am highly confident will work, which is we have to require the market participants to stimulate, to imagine these stress situations as the world changes and continue to make sure that they have the capital to pay for it when things go pear-shaped >> marty, just to round things off, given lot of the work i know you are doing now, how optimistic are you about the way that the digital world can be applied to improve results whether in other areas like education and health care? >> look, all my life i have been

fascinated by the idea, can we build a piece of software that is such a high fidelity mirror the real world that we can start to ask questions about that software and we can perform what might be dangerous experiments, but instead of doing them in the real world, where the downside is extreme, we can do them in a software simulation. i think you can describe everything i workedan on wall street in that way i am still tinn continuing to do that, now applying it in the world of private capital the same theme, i am also interested in applying it in health care hive sciences, the future of biology and life skins is computational this. intersection where we can start to answer questions like how will this drug affect a human cell how will it affect a human being or a population? to the extent we can do that with this software we are going to have unbelievable

possibilities and i am a tremendous optimist here. >> marty, thank you for joining us please come back with updates as you reach the goals that you are optimistic about hitting sometime soon. >> will do. still to come, novavax and johnson & johnson both out with important data on their coronavirus vaccines sc will bring you the latest and diuss today's key koechlts with former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb back in a couple of minutes. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ yeah, i mean the thing is, people like geico because it's just easy. bundling for example. you've got car insurance here. and home insurance here. why not... schuuuuzp.. put them together.

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right. >> two more vaccines showing promising results against the coronavirus. both were tested in areas that are seeing large numbers of these new concerning variants, particularly south africa. let's start with the j&j results. this is the one-shot vaccine they showed variability across region where is they tested it. in the u.s., 72% efficacy with one shot preventing moderate to severe covid-19. that declined to 57% in south africa, giving an overall global efficacy rate of 66% what johnson & johnson is focusing on is preventing severe disease and preventing deaths.

they had 85% efficacy globally that includes south africa we talked about a comparisons to previous mrna vaccines >> this study was done at the height of the epidemic cross three continents when a lot of cases were transmitting and a lot of variants were circulating. across that we got 85% protection against severe disease, 100% protection for death, and 100% protection for hospitalization. when you look at the challenge of the pandemic at the moment it is exactly that. what. >> what you are seeing, guys is johnson & johnson trading down there 3.4% novavax soaring today up 65% we also talked with novavax's ceo this morning, stan irk about how their data which was run in

south africa and uk defined their efficacy. >> we are the first company to have efficacy data against three strains. >> now, when he's talking about three strains he is include the prior strain, the b 117 strain from the uk where they saw 86 efficacy 90 against the prior strain. that dropped down to 49% in south africa we are seeing an impact of these vaccines designed around the original coronavirus in south africa but still protecting and most importantly, against severe disease. >> just speaks to the fact that we need to get more vaccines to more people to prevent the variants spreading how quickly can the vaccines get approval so they can get into people's arms? >> johnson & johnson plans the tile with the fda next week for emergency use authorization. we will see how quickly the fda

then can get together to evaluate this vaccine. in terms of novavax, those trials were both frommous the u.s. they were interim data they need 100 cases in the uk to file they have 62 a few more weeks until they get that then they are talking about trying to potentially use that data to also file with the fda in the u.s typically the fda hasn't gone for that they have a u.s. trial on going. they told me they think not before the end of the first quarter would they get data here this the u.s. >> thanks, leslie. time for a cnbc news update with sue herera hi, sue. >> hello, everyone here's what's happening at this hour 75 walked to the capitol on the an verse of the roe v wade

decision. two bodies found on search for missing student. the cause the second person's death said there is no evidence of foul play for suicide the two deaths so far, not connected. the labor department issued enhanced guidelines on preventing the spread of the coronavirus in the workplace the guidance contains recommendations but does not create any new legal obligations. the russian president, vladimir putin has signed a five year exattention of the new start nuclear arms treaty with the u.s. the original expired on sunday president joe biden said he would like that treaty to continue. up ahead social media's role if all the crazy trading action and whether this week's moves are just the tip of the iceberg. as we head to break, check

on bonds for you yields are mostly higher to end the week the ten-year yielding around 1.09%. not seeing the kind of stress that we have seen saying in the broader equity markets stocks heading to their worst week since the end of october. we'll be right back. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home.

dow is down over 400 points. financial stocks getting hit hard today along with the broader market also down sharply for the week josh lipton with a closer look at the names in today's sector nommics report josh >> sara even with the pullback today the financials have been an outperformer in recent months with several of the big banks making notable gains here. among them, citi, morgan stanley and wells fargo. they are all up around 40% in the past three months. how does that performance compare to the banks's book values, one of the main metrics investors can use to look for relative value among the backs look at morgan stanley and jp morgan, both trading at a value more than one and a half times

their book values. wells fargo and citi have price to book ratio of less than one, programs a more attractive level for traders looking to fine more value. >> josh, pulled back haven't they since their earnings reports because of that strong three month performance. up next, we will speak with hedge nd magfuaner nili gilbert about this week's market action and her evident to promote environment friendly investing

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stocks taking a dive today the dow falling below 30,000 earlier in the session we were down 747 points at one point. still down, a little more than 500. mcdonald's is the only bright spot in the dow jones industrials. chevron, dow, and 3m bringing up the rear joining us now nili gilbert. cofounder of the net zero plus investment collaborative great see you. before we dive into net zero plus portfolios i want youed to get your take on the broader market here. the weakest week in a few

months, the retail frenzy, does it makeyou rethink the market. >> thank you for having me back on the show. it is great to be here two points to make about the markets right now, one tactical, one strategic. from a tactical perspective i am still positive on the the stocks but before this pullback they were getting frgt lee. a lot of positive sentiment, the fact this is the biggest pull back we have had in months when the market is not even down 2% right now. it is healthy for us to to have corrections and remember that markets can go up and down i am more positive the pullback than i was before. but the strategic point is even longer term. fwhs esg materiality and thshs ds this is about esg materiality. years ago when they would talk about income inequality facting

the economy it was theoretical now worry starting to see how social issues really can affect our economy and our market in serious ways >> i want to talk about how you invest around that first, nili, you did say you were seeing areas that looked very frothy and that looked ripe for a correction one of those places could be places in esg world. ev spacs for instance have become a hot craze anyu of those areas that you are looking gnat your climate initiative get bubblitious. >> i am looking for long term plays in this space and i think we are still in early innings. think about right now you have the market private secretary neuro u.s. setting up for a change but in a way we are expecting a strong tail wind to come from the public sector and drive these trades forward like anything else they aring gob winners and losers this is going to be a lot of money lost as we go through this climate transition, but also a

lot of money made. i think identifying the good portfolio managers, the good investors who can find and price the right deals will matter as much as it ever has. >> nili, five or ten years ago esg investing meant lunching a specific esg fund and that fund would not have exposure to for example, oil and gas companies whereas today there seems to be a slight shift which is to say all aset managers are all investing with an esg lens and that means investing with an oil and gas company who is lending itself to change u what do you think? >> if you think about it from a fiduciary perspective when it comes the oil and gas we have to ask serious questions about what is going to be the long term role of fossil fuels in our society. there are serious questions

there that i think have been already priced in in the market. but you are right, i think there has been a way have. ors are approaching this which is identifying companies that are willing to be part of the transition to make the changes that woe know need to be made and offer those companies long term capital to invest in being a part of the change and to really give them engagement, proxy voting support, and other things to move forward we can't just step away from the changes that we need to make in the real economy today a lot of the game is going to be about active ownership and it is not just for social or environmental reasons. it is because that how we are going to unlike the returns that will come from the innovations that will power us through this transition. >> you mentioned that you are really focused on social investing. obviously this year has been a wakeup call for what companies plan to do and have pledged to do he it comes to equality and

equal opportunity. what test investment case there? what sort of names do you like when you think about those changes that need to happen? >> well, when you think about social investing, i think a lot of lessons came to us from the covid economy where companies that had been paying attention issues like work force protection, supply chain management, companies that were thinking about what were traditionally ed serks or social issues tenned outperform because they were prepared for the realities that came to them. rather than looking name by name, i think it is interesting to think on a thematic basis about what are the social issues that will drive returns? as i said right now in market i am really thinking a lot about the role that inequality and social unrest will play in volatility in our economy going forward. >> nili, thank you for joining us. >> thank you great to be here. after the break, robinhood's

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trading day. we are now in the "closing bell" "market zone." commercial-free coverage of all the action going into the close. cnbc markets commentator mike santoli here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. today we have keith bliss back we will kick it off with the broader markets. stocks are selling off today

currently off their lowest levels of the session. we were down 750 in the dow. currently down 583 on track for their worst weekly performance since october. the s&p right now down 1.8%. the narrative continues to be driven by the retail mania, game stop and other names which are higher today after robinhood is letting people trade them. is that what is causing the declines we are seeing today and the rest of the week >> i would say it is one of the trigger points far what was a market that was riding at high that seemed like it had fully allocated long positioning across the board and probably needed a readjustment. you do have a new source of unpredictable volatility coming out of these stocks a. tremendous am of the daily volume has been coming out of these couple of stocks that have been moving 40, 50, 0% a day

that causes traders to evaluate risk tolerances and they are selling off easy stuff to curtail risk exposures that seems to be what is happening. it is hard to derive macro action this week because it is not following along with a theme, whether it is reopening arc flight to quality, safety. it is big cap stuff that has profits and seemed to be overowned has been cut back. >> keith what's your take on all the craziness of this week and does it explain and justify the broader markets pulling back as they have done today and earlier in the week? >> there is some of that, you know, in underscoring what michael just said is that you have got the big institutional managers who are riding motorcycles with most of their holdings at or near all time highs. it was this good week -- once the craziness started on wednesday this was a good way to get out of the way, maybe trim

around the edges look at some of the valuations within their portfolios dump out some of the stocks that they have had nice gains on. we are into a new tax year it gives them more flexibility hand it would in december or it would into the end of the year last year. that's some of it. i don't see in conversations around the street any macro events that are pushing this the pandemic is still with us. we are wrestling with vaks own roll ut. the economic data was okay this week and earnings have been broadly good in the s&p 500 relative to expectations this is really just oh, my gosh things are nuts, let me stand on the sidelines and let this thing play out >> robinhood drawing ire for limiting trade on names like game stop and amc yesterday. robinhood's ceo joined cnbc yesterday and said it was a

regulatory concern. >> we made decisions based on the financial requirements, including sec net capital obligation asks clearing house companies that brokers have to comply with. and robinhood was not the only broke hear the restricted buying of these securities. this has been unprecedented activity concentrated in a few names. it is really the first time that he have seen where social media and financial services intersected in this way in interactive brockers chairman thomas peterffy also echoed that statement when he joined outside on "closing bell" yesterday. here's him explain yg they made the move to limit trading. >> partly to protect ourselves but mostly to protect -- of course to prokt our customers, but most of all to protect the marketplace, to protect the clearing house so if there are 10 to $15 billion of losses in there, smab

has to that i them will they be able the pay is the big question >> keith, my question is not so much the rationale why they made these moves but whether you believe they were seriously under treasure or might still be under pressure in facing liquidity ish us and how much different it might be for those platforms if all their customers were trying to head for the exits as opposed to buy more of a certain asset. >> robinhood, just like interactive brokers and thomas peterffy, they had to balance the regulatory requirements versus the moral requirements of actually shutting down trading especially when so many of those robinhood traders came in and got long game stop in the 220, 230 range. but as mr. peterffy correctly pointed out if you are a clearing firm and all of a sudden you have massive losses

the clear broker, robinhood is now self clearing, they have got to take on the losses. they really had no choice but to shut it down of course it angered their traders. now they have severely limited it where you can only buy one share of game stop to open a position if you want to go long. but it was a question of balancing survival versus moral obligation the other thing to remember, even if robinhood was clearing through their old clearing firm they would have called them up and said shut it down right now take those stocks off of your list because they wouldn't have the capital requirements the act of them being self clearing gave them more flexibility because they were able to go out and raise $1 billion of capital to open up trading. but as long as the tsunami continues they are going to be under pressure and going to have no choice but to limit trading in those names. >> do you see an opportunity here as a trader yourself, keith? would you short these names

here it is obviously not being driven by a fund case or just stay as far away as you can? >> listen, a stock like game stop, it is not a $320 stocks. when you look at the fundamental business that they are in, often referred to as the blockbuster of the 21st century, just from their business model i am not making any statements about management or what they are doing. they still have cash on the balance sheet so they can still survive and maybe redirect their business model shorting these names -- first of all, if you can even get a borrower or locate which is in the rules and regulations what have is supposed to happen then expense of borrowing these shares probably doesn't make it wort worthwhile in addition, for me reading the reddit threats this is not going to stop any time soon. i am not sure going in here to short is not the best thing to do i would let the dust settle,

then if there is an opportunity i would go in bass i not believe the share price of game stop is worth anywhere near where it is trading right now in or maybe don't say it out loud because then the mob will go after you. well talk big cap tech right now. they are getting hit hard in today's selloff despite josh better than expected earnings this week. >> faang under some pressure here as you mentioned despite some strong earnings reports from some of these names apple in the red even after blowing past analyst expectations on pace for its worst week since october. microsoft, threatening to snap an eight-day winning streak. turning to the semis, and the smh, the etf that tracks the semis experiencing its weakest

week since march >> josh lipton josh, thank you. mike, what do you make of it especially let's take a stock like apple after the quarter it put up and the week it had, down another 3% it has been a rough week >> the only real common th threthread running through these, it is crowded. beyond that, it is not the me a reaction to the numbers. if you look at stocks like amazon, actually down 2.3% this week it's actually firmed up. i don't think that it's kind of an across the board skimming, but it is trimming back. it is 8% off the highs it is telling us more of the same, a general repositioning. february is sometimes a rough month. you see the volatility

indicators are all telling you don't relax just yet it is an easy place to raise a little bit of cash. >> seema moding as the names reporting today. >> caterpillar did manage to beat q 4 expectations, wretch did decline, construction mining energy, transportation, all seth oars, as the ceo said on the call it is about the 2021 turn turnaround, bullish demand from china where it is seeing demand for its new excavator. also anticipating a rebound in mining activity. on to honeywell, despite falling sales it managed to grow fourth quarter earnings aerospace is still a drag and analysts don't see a recovery until the second half this year. both of these industrial stocks have had a big past three months as part of the row saigstation into value that shifted the conversation to valuation. when you will be at a name like

caterpillar, which is trading at 34, 33 times forward earnings and honeywell at 29 times. that hinges on the 2021 recover ree coming into play. >> the setups are what matters in this earning season. under two minutes to go in the trading day. every sector is negative mike what are you sneeg the interns. >> three to one down versus up split on the roll split. don't look at the volgs. it is really much more about other stop game stop itself lack at weekly chart it is all over the place tremendous amount of follows happened in the $300 it is really a lot of people having a high cost basis in this stock but it is resilient. the vix, agitated. back up into the 30s you see the vix futures. they are sloping down. a lot of people say that means

just stay on guard because the market feels like there are untruth worthy vibrations. >> down 1.9% on the s&p. we are sliding a little bit into the clouz. the dow was down 750 back down to 600 more than 2% on the do you at the close, the dow is down 2 rz the nasdaq 2%, and the s&p just shy of 2%. as you said already, all 11 sectors lower. comfortably show energy down 2.4 and tech down 275%. >> that will make it down for the day, for the week and for the month of january and for the year welcome back to quel i'm sara eisen here with wilfred frost and mike santoli as always, cnbc a senior markets commentator. we disturbed down 6 2 points on the dow. took another dip lower into the close. could have been worse. we were down 747

six negative days in the last seven. down % for the week. the worst week for stocks the s&p and the nasdaq sense the ends of october. s&p down 2% for the week down 3% for the month down a little bit less than 1%. the nasdaq, down 2%. technology, as josh lipton highlighted hit hard despite better earnings from week from apple and facebook the russell 2000 also closed lower by a little more than 1.5% for the week, down % got hit harder than the worst. and we are up about 5.3% in january bucking the overall negative trend that woe saw for the rest of the market small caps attracting a lot of attention and love lately. some of the biggest short squeeze stocks are bouncing back today. coming up we will discuss whether this reckoning for wall street will have a long last,

impact on investing. steve is still with us elin lana hernandez joins us and vick for jones join the conversation first i will turn it to you, mike, on the action we saw this week and today which took us negative for the year. what drove it? >> it did. well, inon the face of it you don't even necessarily have to resort to a lot of the wild activity and all the stocks we have been talking about, and the closures and the robinhood frenzy -- all of that. you could say that a fully valued market that everybody loved that was up 18% from december 30th to this week was due for a pullback, repositioning hit. that's what we have gotten the upshot is the s&p 500 down 4% off its highs, down for january. some people think that's significant for the rest of the year the stats don't really bear that out. then hitting this 50-day moving average. so you don't have a good verdict on this, but it's not really out

of character for a market that has been running the way it is also doesn't mean that this bout is over just because the month ended. >> victor what's your take on this craziness. >> we sent a letter out saying we expect a lot of volatility. there was a better chance of hitting 30 in the vix this week than down to 15. i think long term for the last ten years every year we have been trading sub15 that has not happened sense the early part of last year but the odds sort of favor the idea at rich valuation examines earnings reports where you already have high expectations that you could see some profit taking i think you saw that i don't know anyone could have guessed the cat lest for all of that i think many people thought it would be inflation companies the number you got from theco pc number was relatively hot and in line as we go forward. that added pressure. you saw the russel outperform

the nasdaq and i think that has a lot to do with the higher interest rates you have seen a lot of positive correlation with the russel and higher interest rates? we were curious to get your take on the amazing action on game stop and the stocks that individual investors are piling into and crushing the hedge fund traders. >> it was a difficult decision but what we ultimately decided is that believing in market access is not a slogan it is a principle. we believe in market access. we chose to stand on those principles so we allowed trading in these underlying names our clearing firm notified us midday they were going the closing. they reversed the decision and by the end of the day we were offering access to the market.

i want to be clear, we are not endorsing these, but we know how it affects our client base i think they feel like they are interacting with a group of institution who is are not willing to share the wealth. we wanted them to know we were an ally. for that they have rewarded us with their business. we did a month worth of account openings in a single day. >> you didn't have to deal with the volume of these stocks to the like that robinhood had to can you understand that robin hood was forced into making that decision or are you saying vlad made a different decision and he had other options and other paths he could go down.

>> there are many factors, and they are different for each individual brokerage firm. looking going self clearing in the first couple of years ohave benefits and risks woe made a move to prokt our customers needs, what they wanted to do, and also protected the firm the way we manage our business, we are proud of the and proud of the decisions we made this week. >> what are you telling new customers when it comes the trading options? is that where you are seeing the bulk of the activity >> it is not, no 90% of the activity in these reddit names has been stock. we have been concentrating on education. i don't believe restrictions are the answer it is informing a new generation of enthused participants

s that teachable moment here talking about the fact that she is stocks have 600% implied volatility what that means is not think about upside possibility because when is the last time you went to a game stop yourself. when is the last time you wasn't to a movie theater instead of turning on netflix or disney+. the risk could just as easily touch 55 as it could touch 50 on the upside we chose the use this as a teachable moment to define risk, risk agent and quantifying strategies to people i think they are appreciating it way don't know how this story ends but we are managing the risk as best week. at the end of the day we found that people responded to not being able to get access to these interests they were more upset about that than they were in actually participating in these names. the risk to us is minimal but

the opportunity on the upside to inspoir a new generation is immense. >> elena, you do you think the action of the last couple of weeks will have a lasting impact on capital markets in what way? >> i think what's important like you said wilf, the ramifications this is going to have in the markets. i think it brings risk and risk management up front. volatility goes both ways. and that it is important that we price risk the right way i think it is going to keep us with risk, you know, price being elevated, right? we have seen the vix hit 35 twice this week, inextra day we had a tough time with the vix coming below 20 post -- you know, the quid world i expect that to continue. i think they are going to change and incorporate this kind of non-fundamental investor, investors tham can push the

market right in one direction. but the key of all the things that i think may change moving forward is that you might have some struggling companies or struggling business models, quote, unquote, live for example, because you have these investors that are pushing these stocks to level that -- again, when we lock at the fundamentals, and i liked victor's analogy of when was the last time you went into a game stop shop you realize they are overvalue asked not in the right place. >> the mike, the other angle that could impact the market and something we have been talking around is who is losing, the pain out there from the hedge funds. there has been some zoers on that already will it continue what sit -- >> we get that information every two weeks with a two week lag. there are firms that have taken

a snapshot the shortages has come down by those numbers but not necessarily been cleared out entirely the interesting thing is that the volume in game stop has been so tremendous that the other way to engage a crowded short is how much short is relative to the volume by that metric, it really isn't right now. in other words if you were short and trapped and wanted out you could get out this week. it is unclear if this is going the remain a battleground. it is unclear how much juice is left in the trade. they found just about all the crowded shorts in this weekend it is probably in the 10s of billions in terms of these particular edge funds. it is a big thing for the hedge funds, and a nothing thing for the overall market >> ylan moi.

>> the fallout just keeps on coming today gop senator josh hawley claiming wall street has rigged the system against small investors. he is arguing the retail traders on reddit have come under more scrutiny than the financial bad actors who crashed the market in 2008 that rhetoric echos when worry hearing from progressives who see a throughline between the view of the our capital solutions then and now we hert senator elizabeth warren on this show yesterday using this moment the call for a wealth tax today show sent a letter to the sec requesting information on how it plans to handle the issue of game stop the letter says the recent chaos revealed a clear distortion and securities markets the sec said it will protect retail investors when the fact

demonstrate there has been abusive or restricting trading activity. >> keith, i wanted to pivot back to the broader markets what are you thinking about s&p 500 levels and the key levels to watch from here. >> we had the s&p 500 in our workout overtold actually on wednesday. it was the first index to go that way with the volatility we had this week. now the dow and the nasdaq and the russell 2000v hit those devils today at the same time that the vix has hit an i don't have bought level. clearly in the models we have we would expect a short-term relief of the selling pressure. obviously things could continue to draw down from here, but a if i were a betting man on some of the things that we look at, you know, i would think the s&p 500 should operate back into the 3840 level also the dow jones industrials should get back near to 3100

level, somewhere in there. if we continue to see the traders, if they are free to roam a trading sphere this week that could have people skittish about stepping back into the market two thing that should turn around the market and lend in my thesis is transports they usually lead the dow jones industrials. they did again they are oversold and should bounce back a little bit as long as there is some rely and the dollar, the dollar rallied from its lows, got strong and now it's overbought. as that relieves it will be instructive and constructive for u.s. equities. i expect all of those types of linkages to firm up next week. again a lot will depend on what happens monday and tuesday the rhetoric out of washington frankly doesn't help at all. but i would expect it to trade back. >> dollar up .4% this week

elena, a final word to you on where you see the opportunities amid all the craziness and as we are seeing the market pull back here >> yeah, absolutely. we always felt you had to have proactive and not reactive to this type of scenario. considering we are long term investors we have focused on where is the news and where is the data in regards to the speed of the vaccines. we completely agreed with fed powell's comments this week that the economic recovery will dependan the success and the speed this project we got the news from novavax and j&j this week to add to the supply, right, of vaccinations so going forward, we have included in our portfolio some recovery trade in the travel and leisure sectors. we continue protecting them in the case of inflation with inflation-protected securities, and then as well as we ten our

long in clean energy and we still are keeping goals in our portfolios. >> gottet. guys, thank you for joining us today. a lot to talk about there and unpack elena hernandez, keith bliss -- jones. up next, dr. scott gottlieb is back on the latest vaccine data from j&j and novavax how effective they will be against the coronavirus and potentially more important low, against its variants back in just 90 seconds. risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

positive news on the vaccine front today. johnson & johnson out with trial results of its one-shot covid vaccine showing it to be highly effective at preventing severe disease even with the new variant. novavax also releasing data on its vaccine, closed up 65% today. joining us dr. scott gottlieb who sits on the boards of pfizer and illumina and is a cnbc contributor. welcome back good to have you >> thanks a lot. >> the top line on johnons & johnson, 66% effective explain why you and everyone should hale that as good news when we have had other vaccines like the one you sit on the board of, pfizer, and moderna are more than 90% effective. >> this is a very good result. i don't think you can make apples to apples comparisons across the clinical trials

they were read differently a lot of the subjects were in south africa and latin merica. different variants are circulating there that the vaccines aren't going to be as potent against the variants that are circulating in the u.s. right now are also different there may be some differentiation that make the vaccines less effective. we don't know. we are not doing sequencing at scale to answer that question. it is one dose it can be delivered in an you a steer setting and the immune protection it affordssomes to be durable. if you look at the data from the phase two study and also from this study the immune cells that the vaccine was generating continued to increase for the do you remembering aof the time they were looking at these patients that is a sign that the it may be more durable. we have to think about what happens this six monday or eight months not just the first two or three month.

the safety profile was good, i think it will be approved by the fda and is a great addition to the market. >> broadly speaking it sournds like we are worry being the south african strain here. we are getting data, as you referenced, j&j, novavax, pfizer, moderna. overall, doctor, what is your confidence level in the vaccines that we have and their ability to prevent severe disease against this mutation? >> well, look, i think we had experimental evidence before that suggested there was a reduction in the neutralizing antibodies against these variants it is not a surprise to see clinical evidence from the trials that in the real world in humans in vivo the vaccines rnt a as effective against those variants the good theus isser in still effective against those variants 50, 60% effectiveness is pretty good the original goal was 60%

effective. these appear to be as effective as the original parameters for approval the good news is they are very effective against the original strain but not as effective against the new variants but they are still effective, and we still have to get people vaccinated >> will the single dose vaccine push the j&j vaccine to the top of the list in terms of what we want to roll out and produce as quickly as possible. >> my guess is that this vaccine will get thrown into the mix and used in an interchangeable fashion. it is good to have on one shot

requirement, good it can be administered in an you a steer situation. you could see a situation where this gets rolled out as a single dose vaccine but people who want to get the extra protection from a second dose could get a booster of this vaccine later in the year, maybe in the summer or fall we will see what the two-days data looks like. but for a single dose vaccine have this robust kind of effect, it sergeants it is inducing memory b cells -- a variety of immune cells that's a good development. novavax's vaccine looks good as well there is a question whether they have to wait for american data but that looks like it is going to be a vaccine that's successful as well this is good news. we will have four successful vaccines on the mark and j&j can supply the market. they will start having doses available in february and march. layer that on top of what's available from pfizer and moderna and we are going to have

enough vaccine to vaccinate the public the federal government i think frankly should secure a supply of the johnons & johnson vaccine right now. >> what do you make of the spat over the vaccine supply going on both the uk and the eu medical authorities have approved the a vaccine. >> i just lost sound but i will comment. there is going to be more supply coming into europe you see some agreements to bring on additional manufacturing capacity, novartis struck an veemt. so novembery announced one i think you are going the see more supply coming into the

european market which will alleviate some of the issues i think the issues you were talking about are with the astrazeneca vaccine, but more supplies will be entering into the market. >> dr., we are out of time anyway, thank you for joining us much appreciate it. breaking news on robinhood kate rooney has it for us. >> robinhood again limited the amount of shares customers can buy for certain stocks we have a couple new names to add to the list, beyond meat, starbucks, gm, not the names we have been talking about. game stop for example. there are now 50 names in total on the list. i spoke to robinhood it is not clear where they are adding names like star buck. they did say it has to do with market volatility. they are monitoring stocks by the name looking at each stock to see if it fits a criteria we don't know what that is they say, though, et cetera a fluid situation and they are updating their blog post again, the list now includes 50

names, 50 names of restricted stocks. >> up next, mike santoli will have a look at the short interest and what it means for the markets.

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game stop rally rolling on despite today's broader sell off with shares finishing the week higher by nearly 400%. amc also seeing a boost from the rally. with the recent rally driven by users of social media platform reddit "new york times's" kevin reduce says this reckoning was a long time in coming. he joins us now for a discussion along with nick builton, special correspondent ativan it fair good afternoon to you both thank you for joining us kevin i will start with you in terms of the key takeaways from the craziness this week. and i guess the first question is, how long can it continue are we in a new era will this will become the norm or if she is users experience losses, will it kind of move on to something else fairly quickly? >> i think this is the new norm. i mean i think the frenzy around

game stop or whatever other, you know, stocks reddit is deciding to pile into today, like those run-ups are going to be temporary. those stocks will come back to earth eventually, but i think this phenomenon of sort of distributed, you know, power in investor -- in the investing community, this idea that the internet can kind of seize on something put enough money behind it to really move markets i think that's something we have seen happen in other areas of life we have certainly seen it in politics and entertainment i think it was only a matter of time of about it happened in finance too. >> do you think this could have happened, kevin of course this past month without there being significant short positions, ie, if this wasn't sort of a short squeeze play would it have the same effect, i guess the examples last year would have been tesla and bitcoin to what extent has that

accentuated it >> i think the short positions makes for a great narrative which is what is compelling people to pile into this trade itfield feels good to take down someone you identified as big guy or the establishment what is interesting is short sellers use to be the rebels taking on the establishment who were the long funds. it is interesting how that is flipped on its head. but i think that dynamic of lots of retail investors taking on whoever they decide is the establishment is going to continue because that's what we have seen in he have other place this has happened. >> no matter what happens, nick, do the social media companies, do the reddits -- it is also happening on instagrams and facebooks and other social media sites, do they bear any responsibility ultimately if this ends badly? >> i mean of course that's a great question i don't think they can control it i think kevin is completely

right. this was a long time coming and i think you are not putting the jenny back in the bottle with game stop, part it was the result of the shorts with other companies it is not with blackberry -- they drove up tootsie roll there was a point merp buying aagh because it spells out aagh. i don't think it is going to be stop and anybody company that tries to stop it quickly becomes the bad guy, like robinhood, even though they were originally out to help these types of investors. >> do you think many of these investors will get hurt by this or do you think a lot of them made a lot of money and that will be their lasting memory of it all >> the funny thing is i don't think they care. i have been on the message boards watching the wall street bets and everything. they could sell right now and make millions arc lot them and they are still saying hold,

hold, hold, for them, they are doing it for the lals, they are doing it because they can. and they are doing it to take on the big established players. you know, what has been so fascinating is that who is the establishment has changed. that's why it continues to happen across social media platforms plets, media, you name it i think it is going to -- i don't know how you stop it from continuing. >> kevin, you have been following all of these social media platforms for language time usually we come on and talk to you about politics, what we have seen about the capitol insurrection how do you think this plays out ultimately for social media? do you think that it helps these companies grow is this a new value proposition for them that they have these stock trading groups that are gaining a lot of attention ultimately is it going to hurt them >> i don't think it has much to do with the companies at all i think the people who work at

game stop are probably as confused as anyone this week i don't think it is something that you can really plan for or build into your models for your next couple quarters like it is totally random, almost by definition and i think that actually companies and their investor relations department are going to have to act a lot more like on line. they are going to have to think approximate things like, you know, this social media strategy elon musk -- whatever you think of him, he's used social media effectively to turn sort of attention into interest in tesla stock and interest in tesla. i think this change in finance is going to continue and the companies that are able to harness it are going to do pretty well. >> thank you for joining us. good angle to talk about kevin reduce and nick builton. check out fake famous premiering

on hbo on february 2 of course about instagram realities. let's go over to mike santoli looking at short interest in the market topic du jour. >> i was trying to portray the scale of this activity, barclays has amazing data this is options volume in first of all high short interest stocks in general. there is really only as i said a few dozen where this applies that's the right scale over here in terms of dollars. just look at how it has gone completely off of what had been the top of the charts before if you exclude game stop, by far the biggest contributor, you still have this massive surge. however, if you look at everyall short interest in the market across all stocks it is not that much of a factor so you still have relatively muted levels of total shortage relative to total market cap sfoerds it really haslogicalized it is not ended there. it hasn't been cleaned out we haven't had the full purge.

but for the overall market it doesn't seem to be a driver. that's the overallmarket value of shorts. because the market is up so much it doesn't seem like it is going to be that big of a factor. >> good the know mike, thank you. later on "closing bell," more on this story the reddit user who started it all. the trader who launched the game stop frenzy. and bought in at $5 a share. monday, do not miss the former chairman of td ameritrade on "squawk box" talking about all of this. we'll be right back here on "closing bell.

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we closed down just over 2% on the dow 620 points the low of the session had been close to 750 s&p also down nearly 2%. nasdaq down 2% for the week as a whole, s&p down 3.3%. still could tom, ceo of ey on how president biden's stimulus proposal will boost the economy and the jobs market. the 2021 e-class. motortrend's 2021 car of the year. sales are down from last quarter but we are hoping things will pick up by q3.

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time for a cnbc news update wit sue herera hi, sue. >> hello, everyone here's what's happening at this hour dr. anthony fauci says he hopes to vaccinate chirp by late spring or summer he says it is needed for herd immunity vaccines haven't been approved for children but data is being gathered. cdc is celebrating the number of vaccinations, 177 million americans were vaccinated yesterday bringing the total to 28 million. france is closing its border from people outside of the european union to stop the spread of the new variants and prevent a third national

lockdown the new measure goes into effect on sunday. in seattle arngs late night rush to get people vaccinated after a freezer storing more than 1,600 doses of covid vaccine broke they sent out urgent messages, people responded by the hundreds some in pajamas and robes to get the vaccine. >> what a time we live in. happy they got all of their shots. up next, president biden and test resect janet yellen calling for swift action on the coronavirus relief funds the ceo of eli joins us next with what it could mean for the business community and the economy. as we head out, another look at the dow today it closed down 620 points, 2%, amade the game stop trading frenzy closed down almost 3%, for the worst week since october

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president joe biden meeting with treasury secretary janet yellen earlier today calling for swift action on coronavirus relief >> we have learned from past crises, the risk is not doing too much the risk is not doing enough

>> the president's american rescue plan will help millions of people make it to the other side this pandemic and it will also make some smart investments to get our economy back on track. i want to emphasize the president is absolutely right, the price of doing nothing is much higher than the price of doing something, and doing something big. >> let's bring in ey global chairman and ceo carmine di sibio. we wanted to ask you about stimulus off the bat because you have a good lens into corporate america doing accounting and consulting for so many different companies across a white swath of industries. how badly does this economy, in your estimation, need almost $2 trillion more of stimulus right now. >> well, i think, sara, thanks for having me, by the way. it is always great to be here.

i think the economy does need stimulus it is incredibly to small business in particular wooz he would forward. and around the world is economy is poised for a really big recovery as soon as we can get past the covid issue and pandemic and you know, this week many ceos including myself we had a lot of virtual meetings as opposed to being in davos. and there is excitement for the second half of '21 as is vaccines are rolled out and i think citi think stimulus is needed in the u.s. and other parts of the world, particularly in sectors badly hurt by the pandemic >> you have also been talking a lot about climate and how that relates to some of your business decision it seems like something the white house and big business is increasingly aligned on,

carmine. >> yeah. >> what are you expecting from the administration as far as specific policy action they canceled keystone pipeline, rejoined paris climate what else is going to affect you and the business community >> first of all, sara, let me say on climate, the companies -- in particular, u.s. companies are getting on board so the private sector -- that was one of the biggest parts of the conversation this past week, around climate we at ey announced on month that we will be net stroh by 2025, 2025 many companies are announcing 2030, 2040, and obviously for us it is a bit easier than let's say general motors but that's a big step. it's leading step for anyone in professional services, net zero in 2025. and we will be carbon negative from 2021. this is something we had plan for several months now we were carbon neutral in 2020 we think, et cetera so important, and we are advising our clients very similar to what we are doing

it should all be part of our strategy in terms of how you move forward and this is not just about oil and gas. i know we talk a lot about oil and gas and the sector and new energies and so forth. but everyone is going to have to do their part. all sectors are going to do their part i think the biden administration is on this with appointment of john kerry i really feel like somethings that changed in terms of the u.s. in general. even before the election private companies in the u.s., and public companies, they were on board. something has really changed obviously europe was ahead but now companies are all announcing plans to be really in alignment with the paris accord and i am glad that president biden will re-sign the u.s. to the paris accord but it's something that's top of mine it's something that's important. it's important obviously to young people and to younger generations. but it's also, sara, important in terms of making money going forward. things will shift. and just because we want a

sustainable economy doesn't mean that you are not going to be able to make money through a sustainable economy. that's what we are advising clients on, how do they take advantage of this? if i give an example consumer products. let's take you know any kind of consumer product labeling how much carbon that product -- what it takes to make that product is going to be something of the future. and younger generations are going to buy products that frankly take less carbon better for the atmosphere. it is happening already in all surveys that we do with younger generation it is important. my message is this is not just about -- et cetera about making money, but also about saving the planet. >> to what extent have you been able to bring forward some of those targets by scrubbing out or reducing business travel, particularly international business travel, the sort of zoom revolution of the last year has enabled it as opposed to it

really being driven by climate mentality? >> wilf, thanks for that question that's -- when we say net zero that's a defined term. you can't just buy offsets what whatever carbon emissions you are putting out. we are going to get to net zero by reduced travel. reduced trav. we have that modelled out for the next five years. we're going to go off the base year of 2019 we are going to lower our emissions by 30% and our business travel by 35% that does not mean we don't believe in travel or we don't believe in in-person business. we do. we really believe in a hybrid molly. to make this real, in our model, we actually have a year where travel is going to go back to close to the 2019 levels because there's pent-up demand to travel and for people to travel and be with clients and so forth. from there, it would scale down. what's important, though, is

that our client travel in the model is really a reduction of five to 10%. our internal travel and the example i give is if you run a group that's either national in the u.s. or global and you had four meetings a year, once a quarter, there's no reason you can't have two virtual and two in-person. these are some of the things we've learned by living through the pandemic and operating virtually and we don't want to lose that. >> thanks for joining us much appreciate it. >> thank you, thanks so much phetoming up, the alab, names next week, we'll discuss what to expect s like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started.

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up next. bmd the reddit rebellion the trader who turned the world upside down. officially going on the record what he hatod say about game stop's major market rally. straight ahead

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that makes me want to celebrate with some fireworks. 5,6,7 go... boom, boom, boom, boom boom boom boom boom boom, yeah! geico. great service without all the drama. the reddit user behind the game stop frenzy weighing in on the moves. an interview with the wall street jury room today keith gill is his name, telling the jury room he's a, quote, normal guy and expressed a sense of amazement about what happened saying quote i thought this trade would be successful but i

never expected what happened last week. his mother weighed in saying quote he always liked money, telling the jury room he first got into game stop when the stock was about $5 a share the stock finished higher at $325 a share what i found interesting about his article. he wasn't looking to start a movement, although that's obviously what it became and for all the people saying this isn't fundamentally driven, his original rational was fundamentally driven and correct. he said people were saying this was the next blockbuster and he didn't see it that way thought there was an opportunity for the retailer and that it looked cheap >> some distance from the move from $5 up through, i don't know, you want to call it $40, 50, whatever the number is, there absolutely was a big case.

michael was long in the stock. but at some point it got detachtd from that now it's mostly about a short squeeze when absolutely made this an up side-down situation and made it an asymmetrical bet for those who buy it and contribute to a squeeze. there's no doubt about it. this company made it through 2020 and it's not as if it's out of cash. i don't think that it ef was a great bet to go to zero, maybe some of the shorts we're looking at but at 325 it's a totally different animal than what he thought he was buying. >> when we look at apple down 5%, the week as a whole, lots of techs and others reporting is apple down because of the game stop frenzy >> i think it was mostly down in this general move of people pulling in some of their winning

bets i think the numbers were fine. maybe they were discounted by the run-up in the stock before we got to those numbers but really what's going on right now is this reposition oing shock. it's kind of vibrating around the market which is the explanation >> deep expletive later. >> they're retail traders. they're not a mom. i did not mean to be derogatory. >> of course, never. we say to everyone, have a lovely weekend "fast money" starts now. hi i'm brian sullivan in for melissa lee. this is "fast money. steve, barb and it's a big show. tonight on fast, j and j delivering will this be the game changer that