that's not even leaving, or looking at some of the micro cap small ones out there be careful out there, guys back to you. >> thank you very much >> folks, that does it for us today. sorry. that does it for us today. we will see you back here tomorrow joe, i'll see you back here tomorrow, too. right now, time for "squawk on the street". good monday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i i'm carl quintanilla, with jim cramer and dave faber, snowy east coast in times square a big week for eco data and the second busiest week of q4 earnings. the road map begins with the reddit fueled frenzy continued for gamestop, amc and now silver the latest target in the short squeeze. plus, goldman calls it the biggest short squeeze in 25

years. but says investors still have reason for optimism as economic growth remains a key driver for stock prices >> and speaking of stocks, well, they are looking to rally at the open, investors seemingly set to shake off concerns about speculative retail trading, and what was the market's worst weekly sell off, carl, since october, but we will see if the rally continues once we open a half hour from now >> great to have jim back in the chair, looking great as usual, jim. let's talk about what was wren over the weekend david costa's note is the highlight. just looking at historical short squeezes, and the short goldman basket, which in his word is the biggest squeeze that we've seen in more than 25 years. >> its data represents pretty much everybody straightforward and i think the most important page of this piece is the list of stocks that are short and the value, how much money is actually involved. but i think, as i looked at the top seven, and you really come

to about $70 billion, if $70 billion is going to bring down the stock market then i say you've got an opportunity here that you wouldn't believe, and i say that because in part because i got to tell you, carl, while stocks are down a lot, the companies that had good earnings are down, too. and david, you understand when you look at that list, that you're really talking about some companies that know how to deal with this. particularly amc entertainment where we have adam aaron offering at the money stock to be able to raise $900 million bond deal but they've got a very high high call automobile de-- callable debt, and that's the only one struggling to survive gamestop is struggling for relevance. i wonder what the opportunity is, and very hard to figure out what ryan cohen's plan is because he is very quiet and people are starting to say wait a second, this one here, it is really a company that can hurt when we return to regular times. so i mean we've got some that are valuation, david, and some that are actually taking

advantage of the squeeze american airlines did that last week so it's a creative way to be able to raise money. i'm trying to stay away from, of course, robinhood, but i'm trying to stay away from the notion that this is big enough at the top of the market, and costen makes that point, once again he's neutral, trying to get it right, and he's unemotional. >> yeah. i mean you know, this morning, i want to talk with you about robinhood as well, because i do find it fascinating, in terms of what the future of that company is going to look like, jim, but let's come back to this morning and it's not about stocks as you well know and carl well know it, is about silver in particular, and seems to be the next target for the reddit cohort or merrymen as you have been calling them jim, and it was weeks ago, months ago that you focused us on these chat rooms that have become so well known, prior to becoming so well known

nationwide and we did it with the knowledge of spacs and vitriol we were getting with some companies in the ev space and they are now focused on silver and we see what is going on with the etfs and when i look at the commodity, it is not necessarily one where there is a large short position in the commodity itself is there yes. hedge funds use short positions in etfs to help heng but it's an interesting dynamic here and not sure how it will play out, although they're sending them up dramatically >> people have to recognize that silver is, well, a precious metal, david, is chiefly used for l.e.d., it's used for a great deal for auto, and obviously a great deal for jewelry, and when you take it away, you're talking about a market that is very small, there are only two stocks that are really investable and a lot are trading but pan american silver has 17.5 million silver ounce, they failed to deliver on the amount that they like to do. they are predicting this year, 22.5 million, that is actually

very big the other one that i find that is, let's say, worthy of investment is wheaton precious metals the stock is up big. 820,000 ounces per year. that they tend to put out. and everybody else david is really too small obviously people are using the etf silver do i think they're misdirected in taking it up? i do think if you think the gdp is going to grow, you may have something in silver but this is gdp oriented this is the first thing that they have targeted that practically has a limit because will is not that much silver out there, but at the same time, david, what it is used for, it is not ornament million, so therefore, you need a step-up in business in order to make that invaluable carl, when we look at what they've written about so to speak, and what they talked about, on reddit and wall street bets, i think what you're saying is, look, there's a lot of people who may thib thank' manipulating, and i think they're telling a story, a lot of stories, let's go to bed bath, you either believe mark is

doing a good job or you don't. and gamestop, you either believe ryan cohen has a chance to make it because of chewy or you don't. and gamestop and chewy, and it is a false dichotomy it is a company that can do well and reinvent itself with the money that it can raise and the idea that can want raise money somehow, look what adam aaron is doing, he is able to do it at amc, so i find, it may be disturbing because you have a major move, why not admit that it's a material move and come forward with your plan does ryan cohen have to come forward with his plan? no because he's a member of the board. but i do think that gamestop is ill-advised in their decision to not talk and they should come on the show this morning and talk >> yup, you've been pretty consistent, jim, in your diagnostic of what they need to do

more broadly, though, jim, you talk about risks to the overall market today mark wilson, morgan stanley comes out and says, look, the correction is here, b of a, talking about the third week now, jim, more similarities to the year 2000, heavy retail, you fork sentiment, euphoric sentiment, negative valuations and negative output for companies that beat. why is that not a concern? >> i think it's not a concern, and i think, when you look at 2,000, 330 companies that could fail between the period of 2000 and 2002, and how do i know that i was involved with litigation when i started the street.com. and the vast majority of those companies were not making sales let alone earnings david, you know, and look what's going on with the company, other than the most recent fin tech and the spacs you're dealing with companies with tremendous earnings power if you look at what facebook reported last week take a look at the remarkable numbers from microsoft the remarkable numbers from apple. those are not fitting with the mike wilson model.

i really think that mike is absolutely right when it comes to the spacs, we had a guest this morning talk about it, 140 spacs have come public and all have made money or nothing, and it looks like free money to be and it may turn out to be but, as you know, and david knows, free money, not what happened in 2001, and i think it scares people and that's certainly not my goal. >> no, and i tend to agree with you, of course, we can talk about the multiples on companies like facebook, growing its top line an astounding 33% at least it did as of last quarter. when it reported last week at the same time, jim, there are pockets of speculation in this market i don't think we can doubt that in any way we're looking at some of them right now. you're talking about gamestop like they would actually, like this is normal i mean this is not normal. this is crazy. at least from a valuation

perspective. >> look, you got to go back to the way, brad canlingo, came on "mad money" many times and he was trying to shift model after model after model and ended up being a swag model, they have 5,000 stores, what are some of the animations, this key use themes a warehouses, like walmart does but that is not doable because due really go to a mall for a warehouse, you could say listen, they have the possibility of what the hell, they could take $22 billion market cap and easily do a takeover from our own friend zinda, david, take two there >> good. i don't think he wants to take the stock. i don't know anybody who wants to take their stock right now. i mean - >> listen. >> in some ways, but we're spending to much time. i mean listen, silver is fascinating to me, today, as is the future of robinhood, the platform of which many were locked out of gamestop last week

and ended to a one-day decline and it is interesting to see how stable the stock seems to be and we will be watching through the course of the day and watching silver, obviously, but what about robinhood because that to me, it is a fascinating part of this overall company a company that suddenly realized we're in the technology business and we're in the financial business and we need to have a lot of capital and we might be in a somewhat capital-intensive business because we're being asked to put up a lot more in terms of making sure that we don't have negative equity in people's accounts and get hit with a huge loss, and so they went and they raised a billion from their existing investors, they raised $500 million on banks, and they are probably going to need more, and back to those investors as well. but it sort of does make you wonder what the overall business model of the company is at this point. given that they've realized that there is a lot of fin in fin tech >> yeah, yes, well, david, he hasn't been in contact with robinhood this morning, and obviously, you know, they got a message of how to make their money, but you just very quickly check, it you know, they make

their money, and they talk about how it's, yes, as a source they make money, robinhood's mission is democratic, they keep talking about that, but they are able to do commission-free trading, we know that. but there's no free lunch. income generated through cash but they get some money from what they trade. and vlad tenia, the ceo says he has been very active in saying he thinks you get the best price. i'm not going to say he doesn't get the best price i'm saying the idea whether he does is really up to an independent group, say a regulator decides that, and it is much, because i think it is important to talk about how there are capital requirements now, now to the game and being new to the game, if you take the common stock, if it becomes an option? they don't make mike but what happens, david, if the spreads get really wide, and citadel, now i'm talking about the clear, and well, why don't i

play a sounds on tape, from december, from when i had vlad on, when he was really worried about the s.e.c. and the agreement. >> we've taken a lot of major steps to ensure our compliance program is industry leading. and we've addressed, we've made improvements to the way we communicate payment for order flow on our various revenue streams, including a new section of the web site, where we give consumers statistics about execution quality on the platform >> well, there's something, david, because it is true that robinhood gets payment for, it and chiefly, i believe from citadel, but we're not sure everybody else, but david, i think the problem here is that the spread has widened dramatically, so it is entirely possible that the company did make more money and you may not have gotten the best price, and obviously, they think that's up for dispute, but what is not up to dispute, david is, there are

capital requirements that's why i say this is a regulatory issue it's not a systemic issue. it would really behoove, gary gensler, the new s.e.c. chief to explain the idea there are regulatory reasons why a robinhood might be limiting things not that robinhood is trying to hurt the little guy. they're not trying to hurt the regular guy. there's 17 million people. but the problem is there are other alternatives and i think that the idea that you are so-called stuck at robinhood, 40%. a huge percentage of the money that left robbenhood went to square, so i think that you have to recognize that while everybody is concerned about robinhood, be concerned about robinhood, it is really being concerned about systemic, not systemic risk, but regulatory risk, and regulatory risk is not as important carl, for the reason why i'm making this perspective is when i see stocks like facebook, which david mentioned, or i see some of the stocks that are trading on a matter of revenue like service now, is reporting a really good quarter or even a paypal, you go into a square, it's very hard to refute the

fact that maybe these are the new way, new banks, so you have the tesla combination, i want to find the next tesla, you have the chewy combination, which is obviously doubled the market of gamestop and i want to do chewy and if you're reading in reddit, reading wall street bets, there is no reason to believe these things couldn't happen but they're an odd situation they're less likely to happen. and if you're buying the stock, you kind of hope that there is a master plan. if you're buying amc, i like that why? because if you think that we're going to have 50% of the people vaccinated, we may have people go to the movies the more stock that they offer, the more likely the company stays in business. so he's a very smart guy and he is doing that with the money. that's what they do. and let's say before we get too caught up, i am so glad to be back i love everybody at this network who is doing such a good job and i want to make this clear. on friday, it was not a vast conspiracy to keep me off. it is simply it is hard to take off a foley catheter than you

realize. >> it did not sound like a pleasant week for you, but we're so glad you're looking and sounded growth, because we needed you those couple of days you weren , you were in disposed >> a new street high on tesla. and some downgrades of viacom, moderna, ford. we're back in a minute 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

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i understand what is happening with gamestop is just a reminder of what's been going on on wall street now, for years and years and years. it's a rigged gig. we need a market that is transparent, that's level, and that is open to individual investors. it's time for the s.e.c. to get off their duffs and do their jobs >> elizabeth warren over the weekend on cnn, as more voices add to the conversation about short selling, and robinhood, too, jim, you mentioned vlad before the break, he does write an op-ed in usa today today, saying we provide robinhood to have access to investing to all, and it certainly wasn't because we were trying to help the hedge funds. >> well, look, i mean i don't

think anyone can dispute vlad's comment, the ceo of robinhood, but here's what i worry about. i've had senator warren on "mad money" many, many times and she certainly does represent democratization but i don't want anyone to think the market is rigged and i say that, let's take gamestop, it wasn't rigged on people smart enough who were up against a hedge fund and had to gather and let's take amc, is it rigged that because because the stock goes up, it could stay in business? i prefer not to use the word rigged why? because it is too inflammatory i would say many voices and not necessarily manipulation until it's proven. and do we want everyone to do well we want everyone to do well. do i favor the regular investor? yes, it is just my, it's been my love since i got in the business in '79 but i think what matters, david, is that it does not do good to inflame.

it does good do good to look for value and decide what maybe too high, so that you can ring registers. there's a lot of ringing register situations, david and i think that it's a he incumbent upon people to recognize that while prices can, they fluctuate, as jpmorgan said, we certainly could be in a situation to say the fluctuation is geared toward one side or the other and they're not concerned that people leave the market, as they did in the past, as they did in the 2015 experience with china, as they did with the ill-fated 2018 situation, so my goal is to try to keep people in the market and making sure that people don't think it is a rigged game, but it is not a game, it's an investment, and trading business, that some people are better at it than other, and david, that's life. isn't it >> yes, listen, when you're robinhood and asked by clearsing houses to put up more money, you put up more money. he made that clear on a conversation over the weekend on something with clubhouse with elon musk. and asked for $3 billion and now, obviously, they were

able to raise a good amount of money. as i said they probably will need to raise more, but that's not about a rigged game necessarily. that's simply about trying to preserve your business in some fashion. you know, i do wonder, jim, if robinhood were a public company, and we watched it last week, do what it deal with what it was dealing with, and come under such stress, that it needed to raise more money, what would have happened to its stock price, and the confidence in the company? it may be benefitting from the fact that it is a private company as of now. >> well, david, you raise a great point. apparently there was a book that went around. now, again, did it come from there? i believe. but i don't know the facts i don't want to say i'm misleading i'm saying there is a book where they were very sparten in trying to give you the profit and loss. if i were robinhood, i would send that right now and say look, here's what we're doing. and you don't want to hide behind private why? because you have 17 million customers. is it possible to have a takeover bid we can't speculate on that

but what we can say is we know how much money they had and we don't want this to be a decision where people said this is robinhood being prudent. we want to be able to say that it was the government urging robinhood to be prudent. we don't know that what we do know is they needed capital or else they want be in the situation they're. in it's not their fault that they needed capital. it's regulatory requirements and carl, when we get into this type of thing, we get into this vast conspiracy thing, that's painful. if you're a broker/dealer, if you're a robinhood, you need to put up capital ken griffin, who owns citadel, remember this is not the citadel side, that is a rich hedge fund, it is really a clearing corporation, it would be helpful, it would be helpful for people to come on and tell us what's going on. >> well said, jim. we hope to learn more this week. we'll take a break here. we'll get to a lot of other issues with people who are not necessarily in gamestop. such as some of these covid trends which are quite

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first day of a new month as the dow and the s&p come off of a losing january. dow is looking for a reversal. lower in the past six or search, and it might get it. futures are green. we're back in a minute

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we have about a minute and 30 seconds before we get to an opening bell, jim. time to squeeze in a mad dash. nice to have a name we haven't talked about in a while. sky works solutions. >> i'm thinking sky works solutions. why? because i had the fortune to be able to be, not on my back, but on my side during last week, and when you're desperate for reading, what do you turn to you turn to the conference calls and turn to what people are saying and the best conference call last week by far actually was not facebook, which was excellent, not facebook, not apple, sky works solutions, why? because they're very much in the internet of things they're very much in auto. very much in 5g. and the numbers they reported is spectacular. mike wilson, even as much as i admire his work, she look at sky corks. that's a number 16 times earning. griffin doing a remarkable job that's what i'm looking for. does gamestop obscure in $27

billion company? if that's happening, that's a shame. we can go over some others but i'm picking that one as being a single best in a week. it was heavily, heavily related to the situation. >> the opening bell, guys. the s&p 500 at the bottom of the screen as we kick off, as we said, the month of february. jim, a big part of morgan stanley, mike wilson's bearish thesis this morning, is what he is calling a peak in the growth of m-1, m-2, that is money supply, and which sort of brings us to this discussion that 10 gop senators are expected to have with the president today, about their new compromise of about 600 billion. >> yeah, i think that's really important. because while mike wilson is look at the current picture, let's not forget that the hedge funds derisked about a trillion last week, very large. 5 trillion on the sidelines. are the margin numbers too high? absolutely if you ask me what the root of evil so to speak in the situation is the easy margin

including some companies that perhaps lost track of the margin, that's definitely true and i wish there were more people who were more prudent about borrowing money because that's how you lose a great deal of money but if they're going to be stimulus checks, if we're going to have another round related to covid, then i think the idea of m-1, m-2, being the focus, may be wrong the focus is, is what people do with their money when they stay at hem and they get a check and they have a job. david, one of the remarkable things we're discovering, if 50% of the people were vaccinated by may, will they stay home or go out? and if you think they will go out, you have to buy a different group of stocks and david, i think that's not in the hands of anyone on this show, it's more in the hands of the public situation, and what president biden is going to be doing with the dispersal of the vaccines. and i think that's frankly, david, out of our control. >> yup, it would seem to be. and of course, we are still, despite our focus of course on that name there, and the new dynamic in this market, jim, we

are focused on the distribution of the vaccine, there's a lot of concern as well. thankfully by the way hospitalizations, new cases, coming down dramatically that's a good thing. but there is that continued concern about these new variant, and as to whether we can win the race to essentially vaccinate enough people, so that those variants are not going to bring us back to levels that we recently visited when it comes to the virus, jim. i think that's a key concern we can only sit back and watch and hope for the best. >> yes, i think the, what was the news last week, it was j&j, which is possible that they have as many as a billion vaccines but obviously their number at various levels at 66% say in terms of efficacy, but david, 66% is better than nothing, if you're 50, 340, 30, so we're looking at a foot race, i think what we're trying to do is close the gap and pass the gap and that has a lot to do with the efficiency of being able to distribute the vaccine in any

way that is not as what we regard as political but much more in the hands of the krcvss and the walgreen's where we should be initially. and talking about the idea of the antigen test, versus pcr, i know it's old hat at this time, but carl, what we're trying to do is make it that fewer people are in the hospital and ultimately looking for a pill, not some sort of an infusion, and look, there are many at stake here, and regen ron, eli lilly, does eli lilly work against south africa does regen ron work against everybody? those are therapeutics but i think carl, i don't want to lose sight of the fact that maybe some company, gamestop, beyond heat, stitch fix, sun power, fizz. la fleur and if that's what we're talking about, and if what we're talking about, it is something that is incredibly fun, that is not something that is going to be

helpful. >> as steve liesman pointed out this morning, morgan stanley saying we've gone from putting 20% of available shots into arms, to 50%, in three weeks, and it looks like we can go higher and even dr. gottlieb this morning talking about the variants and the challenge of the vaccine, he says i think we're going to stay in front of this i do want to get you on tesla, because pipe der make some news as they -- pipe der make some news as they went from 515 to 200, and a five page report on tesla, 9 million deliveries by 20, 30 it may take decades before the company runs out of opportunities. what do we think here? >> it's right about where the battle for rhoden came in, pretty easy, it is a long and convoluted argument. here's what i think is completely unnecessary on a day like today, to come out and say this is the stock to buy. using 515 to 1200. is piper being responsible

no, but alexnder potter, moving that price target, makes people think, wait a second, what do we pay, and david, i know you love this 9 million units in 2030 from tesla, what is that worth and this is the tesla, this is the chewy, this is the amazon, this is the netflix, that put chewy in obviously because ryan cohen is now on the board of gamestop, is this important right now to do this? tesla, had a quarter, and people are still in love with tesla because obviously of the gross margins but they're going for volume and they make money per volume i just wish that there was a moment here where people would just pick a stock and say you know what, this might not be the principle time to be able to push tesla, only david, because that's part of the morass so many of the regular investors find themselves in, trying to find the next tesla which then leads to the spacs and trying to find the next spac that looks like a part that goes into a tesla or whether it goes into a hydrogen engine, fuel, the power, and they want it make

sure they're not beholden to the oil companies. and david, if tesla is the next big thing, if not already, then what do we think about x rod, and the idea of exxon, chevron >> yeah, good lead-in thanks, jim. you know, they may very well have had a conversation or two, last year, as the journal reported i've been hearing some chatter around about it. did not frankly follow up in part because it is hard to imagine even now the anti-trust argues against a deal that would bring together exxon and chevron. for exxon, the focus right now, of course, is their conversations with the activist investors who are in the stock, and where that's going to end up in terms of some sort of an agreement on both capital expenditures and operating expenditures, will there be a new member of the board, or perhaps even two, we should get some clarity on that, from what i'm hearing at least, perhaps as soon as weekend. or at least part of it, and it may be sort of staged in terms of things we hear there.

but that's kind of going to be the key thing for exxon shareholders, but jim, i'm glad you brought it up overall, because of course, given everything we've been focused on, not just last week, with gamestop but yet again today, with the silver companies, or i should say the metal itself and the silver etfs, we lost sight of some big story, including last week, jim, you were not here when gm said, oh, yeah, gasoline-powered vehicle, we're not going to make those any more in 2035, this goes into the entire argument, you were making or talking about, when it comes to tesla and its future, gm is going to be a key competitor, no doubt about it, given its entire lineup will be made up of ev, as of 2035. 14 years away. for those like me who may be hard-pressed sometimes on math so you've got this part of the market that is a focus for investors. gm, ev overall, spacs, we've got another one today, for example,

tuskin is its name, this one, doing micro vats ev battery technology. it's already in the market big time they make power. about 30,000 commercial vehicles and they have about 100 billion in revenues. it will provide 822 million. you can see how it's performing. this has captured the imagination of many many investors, far beyond gamestop in some ways, wouldn't you argue, and at least you can make an argument here that there will be winners and losers and there will certainly be some winners in a vastly, not an underserved but a market that is growing extraordinarily quickly given the targets of some of these big companies. >> yeah, i mean a lot of these people, i've been focused on northern, for instance, michael hoffman, it's a hoffman trade, they've been able to, are they going to merge, are they not

going to merge, that's one that could come out on top, you know, we talked about ev batteries that are better than tesla's but david, i think the bottom line here, before we leave the exxon, chevron talks, is these are two companies going in different directions exxon is trying to preserve its business model, trying to preserve its dividend. chevron had a pretty decent quarter on friday. and they have done much more to be able to grow production and happen to believe if you own oil, you can join chevron and pioneer because they are growing production and all of these different companies designed to make sure that oil, that petroleum is, a much shorter bridge, because a lot of the oil companies, to have, if you're buying chevron, david, maybe it went from 2035 to 2030 because there is so much money coming to all of these different alternatives david. >> agreed. there is a direct connection between gm's decisions, and of course, tesla and the growth of

ev, which still continues to be an infinitesimal part of the overall market in terms of automobile sales around the planet but we know, jim, it's going to grow dramatically they will tell you of course, their product is not just used for automobiles. but it is a key part of their revenue stream so these companies have got to figure a lot of things out jim, i don't know if it end up that they buy a lot of these battery companies, perhaps that's the bid eventually, and where they need to go. given energy overall is the business they're in. >> well, you know, it's really fun, if you take a look at this, let's use this as a template, hydrogen has been completely, david, completely out of the mix. and very small, green hydrogen we're talking about. why? it is too expensive. but the power of electricity has come down. you need that. there are companies that are furiously trying to get this to be a fuel where it's the greenest of the carbons. and now do they make it? or stick with batteries? which is a plug-in system.

whatever is happen, david, the thing that we don't want to lose sight of the fact that the fossil fuels are hated by companies. so when you're dealing with an amazon and walmart, those are your core customers and listen we have to lower your footprint and fed ex, lower your darn footprint and that's going to come to these companies. carl, it is the customer that is driving these things, not the investor, but the customer that is saying we need to meet our goals, to be carbon muneutral, d in order to do that we can't use carbon engines that involve fossil fuels and which is why it is meeting the customer it demands with amazon being the le le leader and walg mart being two. >> as david said, a remarkable headline from gm they got burd last week. 2035 is not that far away in the grand scheme of things on friday, morgan stanley did take ford to sell and gm to 80 and they began to parse out the

opportunities on ev between some of the legacy manufacturers. >> you know, i have trouble with that call. now, my, the charitable trust owns ford, but you're looking at jim farley, a static individual, a ceo, and when he's involved in projects and the very popular ford f-150, do i think it is a mistake to sell ford there are other things that are at work. including the deurbanization of america because of cove. and ford getting out of car where they don't make cars and i think that is misdirected because it presumes that jim farley is just another ford, just another person who is not a ferrari but a ford and he is very much involved in making modern cars and not losing money on cars so why do we take that to a sell other than because it's entertaining >> yeah, all right, well, you have been a big big proponent

and dead-on with ford and with the leadership of mr. farley and i want to come back overall to the point of ev overall, you know, there are some similarities to the enthusiasm we saw around the internet, and the mid to late 90s. and the companies that were going to benefit from it and of course, some of them are still with us. such as allmazon, for example one of greatest companies. and if you bought a basket of stocks that included amazon, you are probably up despite the fact that many went by the wayside. there are so many things that need to change over the next decade and including the ability to generate power in this country if in fact we have all of these people plug in their automobiles to charge them the battery technology the power that we are going to need it just, it goes on and on from there. so carl, there is going to be a very interesting opportunity here, and certainly it's

reflected to a certain extent in the enthusiasm that many of these stocks are met with in the market place so many of these ev companies, choosing to go public, via spac, fairly early in their development cycle. >> indeed. we did get an upgrade of nicola today out of wedbush delivery figures out of nio as well in the meantime, guys, pretty narrow range another time, another day of narrow ranges on gme let's get to bob pisani. hey, bob. >> good start to monday, carl. four to one advancing to declining stocks once again, a sort of negative correlation between the markets and most shorted names when they're down, the market tends to be up, and as on friday, at exactly vice-versa tends to happen. so if you look at the sectors, you know what? this looks like the reopening story to me. once again, what was the east market leaders semiconductors and china what's the old market leaders. semiconductors and china industrials, too banks, too what's lagging defensive names like consumer staples. this is the reopening play

now, if you look at our heavily shorted friends that are out there, mixed today but generally to the down side gamestop as carl mentioned moving at a much more narrow range down amc is the only one that is really up there, unusual situation, moving in opposition to the other shorted names bed bath beyond. express also to the down side. so you see that sort of negative or inverse correlation with the marks. i think it is continuing here today. as for all of the speculation about silver, i have no idea about it, but i can kind of point out, silver is a very heavily regulated commodity. it is, silver futures are regulated by the commodity futures trading commission and they can and do routinely change margin requirements. they did it most recently on august 11. you can see that little circle there in the middle. silver plunged 11% on august 11th gold did as well why? because there was speculation about vaccines coming out. gold and silver were moving in opposition to the vaccine story. so drop, and the cftc stepped in

and raised margin requirements they raised margin requirements for silver futures, like 15% on that day this is when it dropped. they stepped in. now, that, my point is, they're not going to watch this thing go through the roof, they're going to step in and do something, and they would do it as part of their routine activities, to ensure fair and orderly markets. so i don't expect a lot of dramatic, dramatic through the roof movements here, in silver as for the markets themselves, the main stories, are still well-known to the market, the rollout continues for the vaccine. the stimulus is still, you know, the debate over the weekend, most traders i talked to is larger, is more likely than smaller, sothey're talking 1.9 trillion, with the democrats, and 600 billion and obviously, the belief here is going to be towards the higher side, maybe not 1.9 trillion, but somewhere in the middle or a little bit higher here. nobody thinks the fed is going to tape ner 2021, at least the trading community does not and earnings we're getting good

beats continuing the problem is, we know most of this the risk is on the down side for the market the risk of this is not deferring. so what we need to see here is some nice surprises. so far, we'd be getting the great surprises here we see about 38% reporting on the earnings 85% beating, by about 18%. this is what happened in the third quarter. this is what the market needs to see. and pleasant surprises, much better than anticipated, and carl, the good news is, if you look at the first quarter, which is what we care about, right now, the numbers are going up steadily in the last week, we were talking about 16%, up in the first quarter, and now we're talking about close to 19%, close to 20% rise, in the first quarter, carl, that's really good news, for the markets back to you. >> yeah, and once we start happening some of these tough comps, from when the pandemic hit, last february, hanks, bob bob pisani we've been showing you some numbers at the bottom of your screen that's manufacturing pmi a few moments ago. 59.2 from january a record high

for that particular number new orders, 59.9 @and coming up at the top of the hour, in 15 minutes, construction spending. we'll be right back. ♪♪ this is what community looks like. ♪♪

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gamestop and can't lose. >> uh-huh. so normally a stock price reflects a company's value, right? >> okay. >> and two weeks ago gamestop was valued at $17 a share and then it went to $413 a share would you say that reflects the kind of business gamestop stores have been doing in the past two weeks? >> uh, we sell games >> right, but are you good at it >> uh, not really. people download all their games

now, so we are, like, i don't know, what do you call it? >> a dying business? >> yeah, that's it >> the "snl" crew over the weekend talking about gamestop jim, you and david and i have been through a few cycles and when business news and stocks become part of the cultural zeitgeist, that's usually an interesting chapter. >> no doubt. they tried reinvent themselves several times. you know what? we are going to be a victim of the download issue, which became cheaper. we have seen that happen in many industries direct to consumer a pretty good way to go. what is fueling the ability for gamestop to not come on and be able to make people feel it's doing well, it's the shortage right now. the shortage that we have in playstations the shortage that we have in xboxes i went on this weekend to try to find these they are very hard to get. if you go to best buy, you see a sign which says they are not

available. gamestop says they have some when you go to the website as long as there is a shortage of the devices people could say maybe these 5,000 stores are a way to get it. should gamestop become a stock exchange, so to speak for this material i don't know that's a form, i stretch to find how to get to the golden days of $50 to $60 for gamestop. i am talking about the golden days, carl and that's all i can get to. >> yeah, close to session lows, guys, with the broader market, back to 37.30. we didn't quite take out friday's intraday high dow is up 100. still early.

some action in gamestop. close to session lows here anything below 250 would take out friday's intraday low. more "squawk on the street" continues in a minute.

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let's get to jim and "stop trading. >> so it begins. keybank says you want to be out of the nesting trade which then means they take lowest corp from buy to held. carl, i don't know when you get it a may timeframe and 50% of the people have been vaccinated maybe that will be a moment where the nesting trade ends i don't think it's over and i think the companies will do well to get a stimulus check. i take the other side. >> all right, jim, and tonight a

packed show it sounds like >> yeah, we have got democdick's ceo and laura hobart judy marks another good numbers, guide up for otis, the split off of united technologies that involves elevators mark casper has done, i think, really the spokesperson for what the pcr machine does for covid he has been level-headed i cannot wait to speak to him. >> jim, we will see you at 6:00. nice, as we said, to have you back in the saddle jim cramer, "mad money" starts at 6:00 p.m. eastern time. good monday morning. welcome it another hour of "squawk on the street. i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and morgan brennan first day of a new month and a jam packed week as we keep our eye on the reddit trade, jobs friday coming up, stimulus talks, our roadmap begins with the reddit rebellion gamestop, atm and others remain

volatile on this first day of if eb. >> call it a silver squeeze. the trading frenzy making its way into commodities with silver on pace for the best day in more than a decade. >> and we will have an exclusive with charter communications ceo tom rutledge announcing a $5 billion plan to expand its broadband access and reported earnings last week as well >> all right a big hour we start with that reddit trade. m fwha the squeeze stampede means for the broader markets. >> plenty. the volume and the volatility in a handful of stocks last week destabilized portfolios and got alarms raised in terms of hedge fund risk management models that it caused selling in unrelated stocks the point is it's not really a scalable enterprise to go after the ripe short squeeze candidates, maybe a couple of dozen heavily shorted stocks the overall market short

interest, i keep pointing this out, is extremely low. a 15-year low in terms of the amount of short interest relative to the market cap it's not as if this is a heavily shorted market that hedge funds have been pressing their town side bets on there is this repositioning trade that's probably still going on with big investors basically just reducing their risk levels all around, going to a neutral corner has this purge really worked through is the big question. down 3.3% in the s&p last week a lot to do with that type of activity no real way to know if it is done, they don't ring a bell after that's finished. you can look to other markets to see if there is evidence of stress spreading outside of equities but that's not really happening right now. the treasury bond market has been tame. the yields have held above 1% on the ten-year credit veds have not been disturbed. it seems like a violent equity repositioning trade underway

it could actually matter if these stocks calm down a little bit because last week by some estimates more than 5% of overall volume was from a half dozen of stocks with 50% to 100% volatility that will make a dent in terms of market cap compared to the overall market. >> mike, i want to hone in on this quote/unquote silver squeeze we are seeing right now. obviously, futures prices jumped highest level since 2013 might even be earlier than that now. when you talk about the slv, that silver etf, and i know this is a point you made, unlike maybe some of these stand alone stocks, it can much more easily issue new shares what does that do to the movement or the volatility that we are seeing or could potentially see? >> these exchange traded products are built to be able to flex their share count in response to supply and demand. it's not something that can happen in an instant but there are these authorized dealers, market makers who can create or redeem shares in the

trust. of course, in exchange for physical silver. so at some point it's absolutely limited by the ready supply of silver bullion in the vault and the rest of it it's not as if there are people who are short the slv and they literally have only have access to the shares that are already trading out there to cover those shorts it's a little bit of a different story. the silver futures market so much bigger. this is well beyond the scale of just these isolated small to mid cap stocks that have been run in this fashion so definitely a test, if in fact it even is an amateur's retail push to get into silver. >> that's interesting you said that, mike, because that was my next question. you sort of said even if it is i mean, there is a sense that there are also some large investors involved perhaps last week with gamestop and certainly it would seem with this move in silver. i don't know what you are hearing. we can only sort of look at it anecdotally. but it continues to be a theme

at least or a question, i guess. >> without a doubt first of all, look at the trade sizes i was hearing last week in some of these stocks like gamestop, call action purchases that are pretty big ticket it could be people with big profits in the trade are doubling down. i think you can basically infer from the fact that anytime you get an instrument moving this violently and anytime you get this much public flow into certain areas the algorithms are going to seize upon it and tried to trade with it or against it it's fair to assume, plus, when it comes to silver, this is a market that's always susceptible to sort of, you know, a little bit of hype, a little bit of spear conspiracyists thinking it's the poor man's gold. p perpetually, that's been the story. it's not surprising to bolt on to the social media energy to amplify that message. >> you have been covering the online broke rrages for years.

do you think there will be a reckoning or change or shift to the business models we have seen in place >> it's unclear at this point. it's interesting that there is so much scrutiny of the revenue models and payment for order flow there are differences. a fidelity is not the same as a robinhood in terms of how they access the markets and execute trades i think what's fascinating it is absolutely never been cheaper for faster for individuals to trade or engage in the markets now, there are ways to improve it there are ways to make sure it's more fair. to me we had these massive wholesalers who invested in technology to make markets and stocks and essentially triy to ride the spread. that has been okay for a while now. if you want an asset, like, company that gives you a free app for trading, they have to make it somewhere else >> good over view. thanks for that. mike santoli our next guest, founder and ceo of the rock creek group, sits on

the board of the global alliance for vaccines and immunizations something we can also talk about. thanks for the time. good to see you. >> good to be with you. >> so our viewers are being handed all this information over the weekend about the degrossing of hedge funds, the biggest week since 2009 can you describe what you think the impact is potentially on the broader market because of that >> so interesting, february 1 today. a couple of things worth mentioning everyone has been talking about the demmocktation of the markets. investors having the ability to get into the market to get access to leverage much more easily, but also the fact that technology and social media have entered financial markets in a much bigger way. the really interesting thing i thought that we have been hearing more recently is that it was not just the small investors who have been taking advantage

of the run up to gamestop. what was really interesting over the last week was also to watch some of the family offices, some of the very large tech entrepreneur families might have also been in the trade what mike was saying earlier, this size of larger tickets being -- that we are seeing on the markets might be showing that it's not just the small investors jumping on the bandwagon, but also the more sophisticated larger investors who are not being talked about i think the really, really important thing is probably the biden economic team and the new regulatory team are probably watching this very carefully because finance is supposed to be becoming more inclusive but is it truly, truly becoming inclusive? because if the small investor is to be protected, you need to make sure you have much more transparency on shorts, which we don't have right now we need more transparency on the

economic model again that we were just talking about of these brokerage firms, many of which, again, benefit from, for example, selling the flow of information and the flow of their orders to the financial markets. >> right does that whole stew of retail involvement when you combine it with rich valuations, you combine it with the hopes for earnings that appear to be even higher than companies are delivering, does that make the market feel toppy for you right now? >> you know, we are looking at ebidta we know that tesla has a higher number than gamestop obviously, it has a very different economic model you are seeing a lot of really interesting movement in a lot of the more impactful energy stocks, in the renewable stock market there were some corrections in january.

there is a lot of liquidity sitting on the sidelines what is really, really important is as small investors start to get more into this market, make sure that the same level of information is available on valuation and true earning ability, but no question that the forces that are pushing the market are not just economics 101. it's not just the supply and demand it's not just what we were used to before, and we need to start being much more aware of these other forces. >> it's morgan i wonder if you think the retail investors are here to stay, especially if you start to see some of what could be very violent and fast profit-taking in a name like gamestop. >> that's a really great question, morgan i think this -- the gamestop correction could lead to some losses again for those who entered the market much later. but i think retail market is here to stay, even if you have a correction at this time.

there is the size of the retail market is wlarge, and also the fact that covid and covid may be continuing and keeping people at home for a longer time i would assume that the power of the retail market will be there, and if regulators are sure to make sure that their interests are also met, i think you will see them continuing to play the market >> it's david. obviously, interested in hearing your predictions here in terms of what the long-term implications are going to be with this. when it comes to the hedge fund community, we are looking at the numbers for january. many of them are horrible, although most of the firms are still going to be with us. but do you believe that hedge funds will still actually have single shorts, or is that going to become a thing of the past? >> you know, what we are seeing is that in just the last week or so the number of single-name shorts has gone down and the proportions between single-name shorts and the index shorts has completely changed

so a lot of people are moving into index shorts just because, even if you are sophisticated, even if you are very knowledgeable about a particular company, that might not be sufficient and relevant and your risk management models, obviously, didn't work well enough over the last two weeks some hedge funds are moving into index shorts on the other side we are seeing very, very over the last few days that there are also the more successful hedge funds who can withstand this kind of situation, and they are starting to build out single-name shorts and they are looking at the very long game. so, again, it's something that you will see winners and losers on both sides, both on the retail and the sophisticated investor so-called >> finally, on vaccine trends, i'd love to get your thoughts

because the optimists point out, of all the people enrolled, all the data, all the trials so far, none have been hospitalized or died those that have been vaccinated. on the other hand, the skeptics point out these variants are treacherous long term and they at least elongate our path to immunity. >> a lot is going on with covid that is not being measured sufficiently for example, looking at places like india where it seems like infections are lower and no one seems to be having a clear explanation for that so i think on the negative side, as you said, are the vaccines going to be sufficiently effective? everyone assumes that they will be to different levels but these emerging more dangerous variants could also make this much more into a three, four, five-year event, which is not really what we expected i think that was not something that the general public expected even last year last week. so i think moving into february

again, markets are going to start being much more cognizant of this being much more of a part of our lives, and also until everyone is vaccinated or a large proportion of people are vaccinated, including the equity, equitable distribution of vaccines, which is something that has got forgotten, i think, is something that will be a very important part of the dialogue moving forward. >> obviously, going to be another huge challenge in 2021 thank you very much. covered so many topics appreciate it. >> nice to be with you coming up, how should d.c. regulate the reddit-fueledfrenzy? should it. don't go anywhere. we are back in two

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welcome back to "squawk on the street." both the house financial services and senatebanking committees are poised to schedule hearings on the stock market after the recent spike from gamestop. we are now joined by massachusetts congressman stephen lynch, a member of the house financial services committee. congressman, thanks for being with us today. >> good to with be you. >> given the last couple of days, the uproar we have seen over how things have gone in terms of limits of certain types of trades, i wonder if you think the financial system is rigged >> rigged? >> is it broken? >> it's not fair, and now it's

not orderly either so i think we have got to take a whole new look at this this is a real convergence what we're seeing with the gamestop type trades and the, you know, the demmoocratization of the markets. some of that is very good. however, as we see, very disruptive and i do worry about systemic risk in the longer term. >> when you say systemic risk, i mean, what specifically is jumping out at you and i guess how is that going to affect or color the questions you ask at that upcoming hearing? >> yeah, well, we are still getting data, which is good. but we do know that one of the reasons that robinhood explained that they were curtailing trading was because of the requirements that we had put in and that i had voted for where there are reserves necessary in

trading volumes. so there are clearing requirements and posting collateral they had to reach out and, well, they had to restrict trading, if that is true that's at least their explanation. so that type of discussion leads me to believe that there was some systemic risk present now, we'll get more information as time goes on. >> congressman, it's david faber, it could be that hair business model simply was not properly positioned for the current environment and the regulations actually worked, because if they hadn't been there, robinhood might have collapsed. >> oh, yeah. look, i'm not saying that the regulations weren't helpful. i'm just saying that when we get 20 times the volume on options

and this whole convergence with social media, fintech, the democratization that robinhood brings, we didn't anticipate this, right? this is sort of a, an abrupt and almost a manic development that certainly congress didn't anticipate, and i am not sure that we gave the s.e.c. tools that would allow them to deal with something like this so that's what we have to look at >> do you find that there is also sort of a populous nature to this that kind of echoes what we see in the political realm? >> oh, yeah. this is occupy wall street, and they have. so there is a strong element of that, that we see in, you know, reddit and wall street bets. so there is a strong flavor of

that stick it to the man, if you will and, you know, there is a lot of animosity towards hedge funds, some of it well deserved so that's part of this definitely the question is, see, so many people have piled into this trade at this point. i don't think it's wise for congress to try to pick winners and losers here in this trade, but i do think it's more important that we look at the integrity of the markets, that we look at the original mission of the s.e.c. and make sure that they are able to try to maintain those fair, orderly markets. >> congressman, how much of the focus should be on wall street bets versus, i guess, some of the more established players in markets right now? and i say this knowing everything is perfectly legal. that's happened.

in the sense that how a company like robinhood makes money by selling its order flow, how market makers are then able to execute around those trades on those trades as well, the fact that we have seen hedge funds and other investors be able to short a company, short a stock upwards of 100% in terms of the interest and a pile-on there, is all of that on the table in terms of review right now, or is it specifically wall street bets >> i think you astutely anticipate the approach of congress i think you are absolutely right. we need to look at all aspects of that. look, this is across the board, right? so many people have complained about the short selling of hedge funds and that activity. and it may be in ecosystem of finance there is a role for short sellers. certainly when the vultures start to circle a company, it's a red flag to the market in general.

but there has been a concentration, and some people have complained that these short sellers have glommed on to companies that otherwise might have been able to survive. and so there is an aspect of market manipulation that was already present, and now you have, you know, this democratization move and you have the small retailer combining. that's a huge power shift that had not been there before. but this is not a pump and dump -- this is not a garden-variety pump and dump situation, i don't believe, because, look, this is gamestop, right? they are a, you know, a shopping mall retailer. we are in the middle of a pandemic you can land a 747 jumbo jet probably in parking lot safely in america, and so we know the

dynamics here. so, obviously, there is a lot more going on. and i do believe there is some sincere hope and belief in gamestop that was the kernel of this bringing in new people, making sure -- you know, trying to be more digital and less brick and mortar oriented. so there were some fundamental forces on the upside but then it became more of a political movement, and that's when we saw things go to 400 and change from $20. so clearly this is a lot more complicated than people realize, and i do worry about the broader implications i chair the committee on national security. i also chair the task force on fintech, and i worry what our adversaries might be learning right now about our markets.

the united states, we enjoy a primacy in our financial markets that are the envy of the world and this shows a real vulnerability. so i'm trying to think down the line what this might mean. >> interesting well, we appreciate you coming on and talking to us about this today, especially since i know on friday you tested positive for covid-19 we wish you a speedy recovery as well. >> i had a negative test yesterday, that's a good thing. >> we are happy to hear that thank you for joining us. >> thank you, morgan thank you, david our pleasure let's get to our "etf spotlight. looking at consumer discretionary group, the ticker the xly. up 30% over the last 12 months it's been powered by two top holdings what are they? oh, amazon and tesla yeah that will help, won't it speaking of tesla, piper sandler raising its price target on that stock to a street high, now

$1,200 a share saying tesla could have new opportunities to pursue for decades due to its target industries currently embracing outdated business models tesla up double digits, of course, for this year. although not outpacing the gains of gm and ford amazingly enough. we're back right after this. your daily dashboard from fidelity --

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reddit trade today, including atm, which is positive but mkm downgrades it to sell today saying there is still 5.7 billion of debt growing each quarter, a price target of $ re1.mo "squawk on the street" continues in a minute. we're carvana, the company who invented car vending machines and buying a car 100% online. now we've created a brand-new

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♪ i'm cory reagan and here is your cnbc covid update at this hour confirmed covid cases in the u.s. are now above 26 million, although they continue to climb at a slower pace

sunday's 112,000 new cases is the smallest we have seen since early november excluding the unusually low counts on thanksgiving and christmas day as it finds more cases linked to the south african variant, the united kingdom is trying to determine how widely it has spread they are urging every person over the age of 16 in london and some other areas of england to get a covid test whether or not they have any symptoms and u.k. prime minister boris johnson tweeted that the entire country is wishing 100-year-old captain tom moore a full recovery after his hospitalization for covid treatment. the world war ii veteran raised millions of dollars for the national health service as he walked laps outside his home, winning international attention and a knighthood from queen elizabeth. david. back to you. >> thank you. the reddit trade, of course, is making its way over into the commodities markets.

that's something we have been following this morning we are helped by leslie picker with more on that potential squeeze, i guess, in silver. unexpected >> yeah. exactly. spot silver david is surging the price jumping to $30 the highest level since 2013 now it's a byproduct of this latest push on reddit to rev up assets and try to force a technical squeeze in those assets the idea to target silver the middle of last week with the thought being if they push up the silver trust they can force the etf to procure more silver to meet the demand there is also an element of in these forms of trying to bring down the big banks who are hedged against their physical holdings now, slv is surging as are silver mining stocks like core mining and pan-american silver today. a catchphrase on reddit is buy physical now, this sentiment caused a supply squeeze over the weekend. retail sites were bombarded with orders for physical bars and

coins and had to halt orders yesterday. this morning we spoke with mike whitmire, the ceo of jm bullion, who said that he almost -- or he sold almost 1 million ounces of silver this weekend. a typical weekend he would sell 50 to 100,000 ounces yesterday he had the single largest volume ever before he ultimately had to pull silver after his inventory was depleted now in reading through the reddit threads this morning, there is far more debate over silver than there was with names like gamestop and atm last week. some traders pointed out that many hedge funds have long exposure to slv. some believe the hedge fund are masked as verse pushing this trade and the issue of regulation we reached out to see if they have a comment or plan to change their margin requirements. we haven't heard back. we will let you know when we do, guys

>> leslie, you have been f following the hedge funds. they may not suffer, so some of them suffering greatly last week given that move in gamestop and other stocks going through the numbers, anything stand out to you in terms of performance for january and/or will there be any implication for macro hedge funds that are playing the commodities markets from this move >> i mean, my take, and kind of getting the numbers over the weekend from a lot of the hedge funds that were implicated in this, is that it actually could have been a lot worse, the fact that melvin was down 53% for the month, i had heard, you know, numbers far worse than that across the rumor-mill last week based on kind of them getting caught up in that gamestop trade. same thing with .72. the guidance i had gotten from sources familiar with the matter was it was between 10 and 15%. that turned out to be 10% for the month. so definitely nothing to

celebrate, nothing to write home about in terms of performance. based on some of the conversations last week, it could have been far worse than it was >> yeah, perhaps other than melvin, which has been severely damaged. sorry, carl. go ahead >> no worries. i was going to say the trade definitely developed late last week and has carried into the new week, leslie thank you. that's leslie picker rmt as for short selling in general, it is something that the national economic council director talked about over the weekend on "meet the press." >> it sounds like you think short selling is bad for the economy. is that something that should be legal? >> we are going to have -- we are going to look at those issues and certainly understand fully this particular, this particular episode and the broader questions there. >> let's turn to a partner at fin dixon in hurling, former director of the s.e.c.'s commissions new york regional

office andrew, thanks for the time. appreciate it today. >> thank you happy to be here >> they have said they are looking at this. can you give us a sense of how aggressive you think a look they are giving it? >> well, you know, knowing certainly the new york office as i do, if they are the ones involved or washington is involved, my guess is they are all over it. i think the problem here is that a lot of the conventional theories for enforcement actions, trading suspensions, things of that nature, they may not exist here but, for example, is there a coordinated trading going on where there are agreements among traders? you know, those are the kinds of issues that the s.e.c. is going to be looking at >> right where do you think is the bar at this point given these new technologies and these new social practices of what a violation of securities laws is?

is it any different now than it was in past cycles >> no, really not. in a lot of ways, you can analyze this as a bubble it's a micro bubble in the sense that it's limited to a handful of stocks, but it's essentially a bubble, and it's people speculating that the price is going to go up that's, obviously, very dangerous. but from the s.e.c.'s point of view, there are really two ways to pursue it from an enforcement perspective. one is you have to look to see if there is manipulation manipulation is really a term of art that the supreme court defined 40 or 50 years ago, and it really means rigged trades. so, in other words, you would have to have coordinated trading where the back and forth results in no risk to the people who are driving up the price and at least from what i have seen in the news, that does

not -- there does not yet appear to be evidence of that the other conventional approach would be to look for misrepresentations or misinformation in the market so, for example, if the person giving the rallying cry here is actually selling a stockpile of stock while telling everybody he is buying the stock, well, that would bring you into a more conventional securities fraud type analysis. but absent either that kind of misrepresentation or evidence of a manipulation, it's a difficult area for the enforcement division to deal with. >> yeah. i'm curious, andrew, we were talking about it at the top of the show, an etf like the silver etf has a lot nor flexible to issue more shares when it sees a jump in price like what we have been seeing today and the last couple of days stand alone stocks don't

necessarily have that same ability to issue and sell more shares as quickly. is that something that the s.e.c. should consider making possible when you do see just the huge spikes that we have seen in names like atm and gamestop recently? i would imagine that would help with some of the volatility. >> yeah, but, you you know, you always have to be careful about issuing emergency orders you know, back in the last financial crisis there was a short selling ban, which was very short lived because it had very adverse collateral consequences and so the problem with moving too swiftly is that there are going to be a lot of unintended consequences and so while proposals along those lines may well be something worth looking at, i think they need to be given both consideration, careful consideration, but also opportunities for public comment so that the s.e.c. doesn't

inadvertently do more harm than good >> and to that point, this practical matter of the timing of regulation, i think your general view is it takes months to get past the public comments, get it into law, or get it in the books in general, and by that point the movement might have passed. do you think that's a possibility? >> it is a possibility but if there is really a problem had the market, then it's worth looking at to avoid having it recur. on the other hand, these types of bubbles have occurred frequently certainly during my tenure with the s.e.c. and a lot of times the best thing the s.e.c. can do is to get guidance out there for retail investors making it very, very clear just how risky it is to be buying into this kind of a bubble and that may be the most effective thing they can do in the short term >> right if the investors or traders

don't figure that out firsthand given what prices may or may not do andrew, our viewers, obviously, looking for all kinds of good information regarding regulation we appreciate your help on it. hope to talk to you then andrew calamari. >> thank you very much. as we head to break, a check on a few big movers in the biotech space, novavax, inovio pharma and vir biotech look at those moves. novavax up another 22% there is more "squawk on the street" coming up. stay with us reddit traders and t

says pnc's top strategyist is the perfect time to sell equity to pay off debt. where does it take these stocks? at aisssn we had on

tradingnation.cnbc.com check it out more "squawk on the street" coming up.

welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm mike santoli stocks are in positive territory this morning building on early gains, though up about 1% in the s&p 500 led by technology and consumer discretionary. we want to look at the action in the materials sector as we continue to watch that silver squeeze that we have been discussing this morning. actually, lost some of the early gains. the sector was up 0.5% earlier freeport-mcmore an on a high note silver and goal, obviously one of the s&p's top gainers the past six months up more than 100% and coming off the tenth straight month of gains. david, back to you >> thank you, mike. mike santoli after the break, don't miss it an execsclusive with the ceo of target communications, tom rutledge we'll be right back.

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charter communications announced this morning a $5 billion investment to bring broad wand to more than 1 million unserved customer locations. the investment includes $1.2 billion from the rural dig opportunity fund option. joining us to discuss is tom rutledge, chairman and ceo tom, always good to have you i want to get to this expansion of your footprint. you did report earnings last week and the stock actually suffered you've had a great track record of success that nobody can really argue with, but there were concerns about a deceleration in your addition of broad band subscribers down some 27.4%. still up an astounding 3.8% year over year. are additions starting to slow and will that continue, tom? >> no, actually we forecast

that -- obviously 2020 was a very unusual year and people changed their habits we had the biggest growth year in our history in 2020 with 2.2 million broad band additions it was a significant growth year the growth came in an unusual fashion. people connected with our mode of education opportunity fund and so there were a lot of anomalies in the way the growth occurred we think it will continue, an accelerating growth rate since we put the company together in 2016 we expect 2021 to be more similar to what 2019 was but actually accelerating. >> your revenue number has gone

up adding more subscribers as opposed to in the case of some of your competitors raising price. >> that's right. >> that said, you still raised price a bit. is it your expectation prices will become a more important form of revenue growth >> no, we've generated most through subscriber growth and we believe that's the kind of business model we would like to run and think it's more activity, but we've done some things to make our growth easier like self-installations. about 80% of our customers are able to self-install when we do a connection. so we've taken out friction in growth and using that to drive most of our revenue growth >> tom, you only lost 35,000 video customers last quarter are we start to go see the end of people cut the cord or that is an anomaly? >> we actually grew video for

the year last year i think we're the only company in the country that did so and the reason we did is our broad band growth was so good. the reason our broad band growth was good we have great pricing and packaging and great products that growth pulled through a lot of video growth. the trends in video, multichannel video growth is slowing because it's expensive there are alternatives in terms of direct to consumer. we still think there's a big opportunity in video and we're greig smaller packages we're growing historic packages as well in some cases. and we're providing new products transactionally for customers in an ip format we think gives us an opportunity to continue to serve customers with a full product for the foreseeable

future >> another product you're offering, of course, is wireless, which continues to be a larger component overall obviously you're not taking on verizon and at&t just yet, tom, but is this going to be a more significant part of your business over time and did you recently redo your deal with verizon? >> we're happy with our relationship with verizon and we expect to continue to grow this business rapidly in our marketplace we're the fastest growing mobile provider in terms of net ads. we can provide mobile connectivity as part of our relationship with our broad band networks we actually have 400 million

wireless devices connected to our network through wi-fi and now mobility we just won some spectrum in an auction and we'll be able to connect mobile customers through that spectrum as well. >> let's get to it now, the two minutes we have left, what i introduced you with, the expectation of spending a good deal of money to reach new customers particularly in rural areas. tell me about it and why it's important for the company. >> it's important because there are 11 million households in the united states that don't have broad band and those people are becoming disconnected, their ability to be part of society in the way society is conducted today. we've worked with the ftc to build out areas very low density. we're going to build out over

1.1 million homes and bring them connectivity services we'll get a subsidy from the ftc and contribute private capital and do a massive construction pro project. if you think what's involved charter is 150,000 moils across the country in 41 states this new construction will be about 200,000 miles. now that's a lot of physical infrastructure to put up it's going to require us working with the states, with utility companies to clear poles the issue in low density subscription you have a lot of telephone poles per home as opposed to a lot of homes per pole to do that takes time, cooperation. we think it's the right thing to

do people want broad band and with the subsidy we can grow the company and serve the unserved area today. >> it is the key product, as we well know. tom, got to keep it shorter than we typically do. appreciate you joining us. >> thank you, dave when we come back grammy nominated rapper ja rule who told gamestop investors last week to, quote, hold the line, when "squawk alley" starts in a moment dow up just about 60 points. wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation?

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