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happy monday i am jon fortitt with carl quintanilla and deirdre bosa the reddit trade continues we're going to talk about it with former zillo ceo and robinhood, restrictions on trading, what does all of this mean for the future of investing? the former td ameritrade ceo and we're going to talk to longtime robinhood user ja rule yes, that ja rule about the cultural impact about this moment this twist today with silver and reddit and is it wall street bets or is it not? >> it is definitely a wrinkle here, carl >> you got that right, jon it's a big cultural moment the first spencer, former ceo and board member spencer, good to see you again where to start, right? i would love to get your sense

of what you think about market structure and whether or not it's actually changed the last week or so >> this is part of a long trend towards the democratizing trading to 10 to 50 and now robinhood stands on the shoulders of those giants. it's also online media information about investing. that long trend is continuing, will continue. i think in the case of robinhood and people who use it should know if you are not paying for the product you are the product, like facebook, which is to say they're selling your information and that's their business model. personally, i'm okay with that but people should understand that's how it works. the perspective is what it's like to be at a company when

it's heavily shorted and the stock is volatile. and that is extremely distracting, concerning. i saw mark cuban on last week and said something like, look, in the long run it works out the stock prices are picked. he's right about that over the long term. but employees of the companies live in the short term and when their stock is volatile partners get concerned, advertisers get concerned. long mutual funds get concerned because there usually is a little terrible of truth the company can rebut but sometimes the rumors become a narrative of their own and it's difficult for these companies to fight back. >> right >> extending on that experience where you have a higher than normal short interest what are they thinking these companies seeing the same shorts squeezed?

is there a bit of -- spencer, what is the fiduciary role of those ceos to raise money when their stock is elevated like this >> so there's definitely it. we're one of the most heavily shorted on the stock wow, look at all those unbelievers who think we're going to fail. we're going to prove them wrong and that's fine. i can sort of accept that. what i can't accept is when hedge funds that are short talk their book and dress it up as research and pretend that it's a research report as if it's from a proper investor. it's not these are hedge funds that are short and they're talking their book, putting out rumors and innuendo and they're manipulating stock prices. that's frustrating at zillow, we were the victim of

that it's difficult to run a company when you have a short attack do ceos and boards have a fiduciary responsibility when the stock price is way up? i do think companies should be opportunistic and at zillow we did quick converts or follow on offerings when the stock price was pretty elevated and i think that's just prudent. like gamestop is doing or amc, that requires pinprick position and is difficult to pull off >> right spencer, you bring up good points it's deirdre good morning it feels like short selling more broadly is getting a bad name but as you highlight there can be some benefits in terms of price discovery, pressuring companies to be more efficient what do you think comes out of this, the way that hedge funds short or the way that regulators

take a look at it? we've heard from high-profile lawmakers potentially cracking down on the practice what is the danger of that if you get rid of short selling >> i'm very ambivalent on the topic. i understand the value that short selling provides to the market i also have trouble with it. but it is true that short sellers sometimes uncover things that are going on at enron is the company where short sellers helped and that's great. very frequently it also has another side the role to take is to provide as much transparency as possible when people come on the show you now disclose whether they hold positions in the companies they're talking about. i don't know if that's regulatory or cnbc's ethic polic policies if a hedge fund puts out a

report, they need their position to be disclosed. it's hard when people are tweeting about stocks. or on reddit the government does need to play a role in evaluating when people or institutions are manipulating stock prices stock price manipulation is a real thing that the s.e.c. and other government bodies regulate they need to continue to do that and, of course, they need a budget to do that. the regulators are stretched very, very thin. spencer, i wonder if you have a sense yet of what the lesson is from this latest moment that we're in driven by reddit because when i look at wall street bets this morning i see a situation where there are a lot of voices on there trying to say this silver squeeze, it's not us but i dug into it and four days ago someone did post about the silver squeeze, the moderators deleted it

someone else reposted. there's a fight between wall street bets and wall street silver wall street bets didn't want it. are we going to end up with warring factions on reddit i just don't know whether we end up in a healthy place and how this gets healthiest for the retail investor. do you have any thoughts on that yet? >> we saw this in early message boards and reddit has been around for a long time. it's having its moment and gamestop put it in the news. i don't see this going away. i think retail investors will continue to be more and more empowered, better access to tools and collaboration and coordination with each other this is not going away i think that's okay. i put myself in the camp of power to the people that these individual investors have long been empowered and why should

only the hedge funds be able to coordinate and communicate through their bloomberg te terminal, idea dinners in the hamptons and investor conferences in las vegas and midtown manhattan. why do they get to coordinate but individual investors can't i'm in the camp of supporting this overall trend i do think there's a role for regulators thatpeople are not manipulating maybe i'm having my cake and eating it, too i think it's critical for hedge funds to say these individual investors shouldn't be able to communicate through message boards at least they're doing it out in the open >> they should, spencer. they should. i completely agree with you on that my concern as i look at these things posted the retail investor doesn't know who is posting them there are allegations posted that are in favor of the hedge funds. we don't know what's true. it would be so much more helpful if there were more transparency

in who they are, talking their book, which is good, just as long as the retail investor can know who you are >> well, look, we've had multiple elections hijacked by government entities in other countries writing things in online message boards that we don't know who they are. you're right it is clearly a problem. it's also true in political discourse and on other platforms, twitter i don't know what the solution is go ahead, sorry. >> no, i was going to say, your general view this phenomenon is not going away, over the weekend jpmorgan argued the same thing their reasons why the classics, excessive savings, stimulus, a lack of substitutes where you can spend your cash and rising home equity which is something you know a lot about, spencer.

>> for sure. we see this in other asset classes, too reality mogul and arrived homes and roof stock my company is letting people buy portions of second homes we're seeing in the equity and real estate market it is buoyed by rising home equity and people are flush and able to invest and the alternative isn't all that attractive because interest rates are so low we've seen this through big periods of boom. the late '90s was the rise of the day trader and we were talking about etrade and yahoo finance and the street.com now we're, of course, seeing it again. the stock market is at an all-time high. people have online discussion boards in a lot of ways this isn't all that different than it was in

'99 or 2005 to 2007. it's just it goes to '11 this time we've seen this story before >> yes, as anyone around then can talk a lot about spencer, a good discussion to start the hour we'll see you soon spencer rascoff. >> thank you meantime, guys, the ceo just releasing the budget and economic outlook >> reporter: the nonpartisan congressional budget office is projecting the economy will grow 3.7% and average 2.6% over the next five years. even without additional support. the cbo is forecasting the unemployment rate would fall this year and the sizeof the labor force would return to its pre-pandemic levels by 2022.

the number of people employed will not return until 2024 inflation will rise to 2% after 2023 and that the fed will gradually start to hike interest rates after mid-2024 these economic projections are actually better than what the cbo forecast last summer and the cbo says that's because the downturn was not as severe as expected the first phase of the recovery was sooner and stronger than expected so, deirdre, overall a rosier outlook for the economy from the cbo. back to you. >> ylan, thank you. piper upping tesla to $1,200 today. defending its thesis in a 100-plus-page report, the analysis only on cnbc.com. tesla shares up 2.7%

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capital issues, regulatory scrutiny and an angry online mob all plaguing robinhood this week kate rooney has the latest on where things stand for the trading platform kate, it was so interesting to see the ceo vlad tenev go to clubhouse last night >> i know, i know.

with elon musk robinhood is running into different issues the biggest one here the complexity of using wall street's back end trading system i've talked to a ton of people the last couple of days who tell me this is really a make-or-break moment for robinhood. the biggest issue is capital they need enough capital to run this business. they said late friday night those requirements from the clearing house went up tenfold and that led them to put the buying restrictions on vlad tenev talked to elon musk on clubhouse and said robinhood needed to post $3 billion in deposits, that formula is opaque known as value at risk it's a lot of money for anyone but especially for a startup robinhood has raised about $2 billion to date. they have to post that money

itself because it does clearance and custody in house versus if you think of sofi, square, some do it through a middleman or a third peter and the people i'm talking to say last week was a stress test for robinhood and the other firms. some of the market realities are not going away people on line are still pouring into the same trades among the other issues for robinhood this week issues from lawmakers, a couple new class action lawsuits over the weekend and, of course, still a lot of noise online about robinhood you have the #deleterobinhood going around even as some might be leaving we have new estimates out that says robinhood added 600,000 accounts

on friday alone. some of the issues were caused by the customer growth that could be a double-edged sword for robinhood. deirdre, back to you all right. i will take it thank you, kate. put your eye on stitch fix this morning. the stock has been downgraded to a hold with a target of $83. that stock, though, up about 60% in the past month. it's up 3x over the past 12 months a lot more "squawk alley" still ahead. stay with us

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jetblue's quarterly results were out last week, but today the company unveiling some premium product offerings. our phil lebeau is here with a special guest. hey, phil. >> reporter: thank you very much, carl let's bring in the ceo of jetblue. how are you doing with the storm, first off, and, second of

all, you have reported your q4 results last week and we all know the story there for you and the other airlines and another rough quarter. what's your assessment in terms of particularly with florida and the caribbean, the impact when those markets might start to benefit you a little bit more given the situation with covid-19 >> phil, it's great to be on the show again doing okay, i think i'm up to 6 or 7 inches at the moment. i haven't been outside to count. look, we guided q4 revenue down 67%. we reported revenue down 67% down we're not seeing any material improvement. we did see some strength towards the end of last year into some of our caribbean and latin america network but, of course, what we've seen since the cdc came out with the international

testing requirement last week we've seen some of that shift actually from international markets into our domestic network. >> do you have a sense how long those markets will essentially be not completely shut down but really restricted? >> no. i will say i was impracticed how quickly many of the markets got testing facilities up and running, the hotels down there moved quickly to make it as easy as they can and i think word will get out about that. no, look, for a year it's been very hard to call what the next few months hold, how case counts come down, what i can tell you is that jetblue is ready to react as demand warrants >> do you think that congress should pass another payroll

support program for the airline industry >> look, i'm surprised that we are nearly a year into this and we haven't really seen any material recovery yet and, if anything, things may get worse again before they get better what we focus on at jetblue are the steps we can take to control our own destiny. we came in with a strong balance shoot, announced 80 new routes to where demand is we're excited about our partnership with american airlines because that will help us grow much more quickly. congress may or may not act but folks at jetblue making sure we're taking control of our own destiny. >> given the fact a lot of people are calling for it within the airline industry i'm hearing from people who say, again the airline industry again should get another payroll

support program? people say you've had it for a year as an industry and some people are saying enough is enough >> well, look, i think what we know is nearly a year into this the travel and hospitality sector has been one of the parts of the economy that has been most impacted. i think it's right and natural that is where support should be targeted the support we've been given from the u.s. government is about keeping people in jobs we've all undertaken no furlough commitments, we can't lay anybody off. communities that otherwise would have lost service. you're paying the support through payroll rather than through unemployment and other forms of costs the government has underwritten through the pandemic

>> robin, i want to show the renderings of the new mint seat pods on your transatlantic flights. the flights are to start late they are year. are you still optimistic with the time frame that you'll be able to have the flights with these new gorgeous looking pods that will be in the mint, first class, business class that people can buy >> yes what we are optimistic about is once some of these restrictions come off, like quarantines, demand will come back very quickly. we have a lot of data that supports that. we think there is so much pentup demand for travel, so many families and friends and colleagues and trips that people want to take at the moment it's too difficult because of some of the restrictions that are in place while i don't have line on sight of when some of those restrictions may start to lift i am confident when they do demand will come back very quickly.

so that's what we're positions for and focused on quarter three this year as our launch date >> robin hayes, ceo of jetblue airlines joining us today. robin, bear with me in terms of the snow we had it here in chicago. i know you are getting hit on the east coast right now you'll get through this and eventually shovel everything out. deirdre, back to you >> phil lebeau, thank you. one of the chief beneficiaries, amc getting a downgrade. a sell this morning citing the disconnect between its share price and valuation. however, that call not having an impact on the stock this morning. up nearly another 10%. the stock up nearly 600% year to date

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i'm courtney reagan and here is your cnbc news update this hour one of the worst blizzards to hit the northeast in years is dumping heavy snow from pennsylvania to connecticut. instead of closing schools the storm is shutting down vaccination sites and other pandemic-related services. in chicago public schools are closed over covid-19 concerns. mayor lori lightfoot delayed the start of lessons until tomorrow as talks with the teachers union remain stalled and myanmar, the military has staged a coup detaining the

president and senior politicians. military leaders have declared they will take control of the country for one year senate majority leader mitch mcconnell calls the events in myanmar, quote, horrifying and russia expanding its crackdown on supporters of opposition leader alexei navalny by putting his spokeswoman under house arrest over the weekend more than 5,000 people were reportedly detained in nationwide protests deirdre, back over to you. courtney reagan, thank you for that brokerages continue to face backlash over trading restrictions on certain stocks calling liquidity concerns into question especially for robinhood who continues to operate with limits this morning. we are joined now, the former ceo of td ameritrade and eglobal markets board member fred, good morning and thanks for being with us. a lot of focus over the last few days has been on robinhood's business model, its reliance to pay for free trade

yes, other brokeages do this, too, like schwab and td ameritrade however, other trading platforms sofi and square, do not. do you think that makes them a more attractive or transparent platform than robinhood? >> no, i don't think so. payment for order flow has been around for a long time and it's been good for brokers. they do fast trades and well-executed trades over the years. if you think about it years ago you execute trades and it would take five minutes. today it takes less than a second and the market makers and payment forward are part of that processing and speed >> right, but i asked you specifically about robinhood which is a startup, not a large brokerage, that has been around for many years the fact that it brought in its in-house clearing a few years ago, at the time it was touted

as a way for the company to grow faster, reach further into financial services but in retrospect, would it have been better off, would its traders have been better off if it had kept its clearing house as a third party given the size difference between robinhood and the other brokerages you're talking about? >> well, i don't have any inside knowledge with respect to that i guess that's a possibility the reality is what's causing the problem, the broker, in my mind we're still on t plus two which gives two days of credit risk which is what causes the capital and cholesterol requirements in the clearing houses in the first place. whether you clear yourself or clear through a second broker, those kinds of requirements are still there. they can be put in place at any given time and i think with technology today, we should think whether we should be moving to t plus one or zero and that would eliminate the credit risk and avoid this problem

>> fred, what's the best outcome of this moment that we're in for the retail investor, do you think? what gets built or what gets normalized from here that has the biggest positive impact? >> i think as you look at this, and we've seen situations over my tenure whether it's the flash crash or anything, the most important thing here for retail investors is the playing field continues to get levelled. and that's something that has been going on for 45 years since when schwab and ameritrade and etrade all started i think what happens the important thing is the s.e.c. and the people in the industry stand back and do a good analysis of what's going on, what's causing issues and look at the root cause analysis

based on what i've seen and i've read there's no reason we can't move to t-plus-zero given technology today and on the second thing as i stand back and look at all of this, social media has a lot of good things about it and the fact that people can exchange ideas, investing and trading ideas online, i think, are good things. however, just like we see in society today, when you're more irrelevant and you get more incitement, you can get to extremes that cause problems and how you deal with that is a broader societal issue the one thing i worry about here -- >> the second part -- the second part is -- i hope you can focus in on a bit more because it has to do, i think, with research and good information i see a lot of ideas floating out there. then it's unclear where the

ideas are coming from, what their reputation is and people get accused of having agendas one way or another is there a way -- is it important, do you think, for the retail investor to have access to research, to analysis from trusted sources perhaps at a price or a model that allows that over time >> i do. and, in fact, i think if you went to ameritrade or eschwab you would see they've been providing free information for years, educating their investors for years. those are good things and more of that is good. you're making a valid point, those things are done by valid, trusted sources. they don't always get it right either the issue with social media when you get people that the more irrelevant you are, the more followed you get, the more follows you get, the more the algorithms wrap up and you get going and what you worry about

in a situation, you certainly see it here, whatever stock gets untethered to reality, which is what we're seeing right now, there's no fundamental reason for gamestop to have risen 1,500% in a month. someone will get hurt at the end of the day how you do that is a complicated issue. >> right and so, fred, what do you make of the motives behind the retail investors and bidding of other heavily shorted stocks what does it tell you about market participation, the role of short selling and where do we go from here >> i think the retail investor has been growing in numbers and influence in the market for a long time. and this is just the next phase of that. and becoming a bigger player in these types of situations you just have to watch, be very

careful, educate your customer and make sure people know what they're doing right now here i think the retail trader is here to stay social media is here to stay and learning how to deal with that in these markets, i think, is important. >> and a sentiment echoed by our other guests this morning. last question for you, i know you said the payment for order flow has been around forever but it's under a lot of pressure right now. there was one trading platform today said it would actually not use that model and go directly to the exchanges to execute trades and it's going to rely on a tipping model. i wonder if you think this is just a flash in the pan or do you think that business model gets rethought in the weeks ahead? >> i think there's people talking about a lot of different things right now whether it's reconsider shorting, reconsider payment flow i continue to come back to the points i made earlier. when i look through all of this, we need to look at t plus two to

get rid of the credit risk in the system so nobody has to curb trades i guarantee robinhood the last thing they wanted to do was curb trades on their customers. they did not want to do that number two is look at how social media is being used. are people promoting something, making money and then getting out of the stock and leaving people holding the bag we have to watch for that. i'm sure that's one of the things the s.e.c. is watching. >> fred, thanks for being with us, fred tomczyk, former ceo of ameritrade >> in the meantime, watch viacom cbs and discovery. target 46 on disc and 49 on viacom saying the recent rally driven in part by short covering the vix below 31

regards to how you scale that unity, clubhouse is a room and that room is a flexible container. so we think if we can empower moderators and other people on the app to host great conversations, you can have millions or billions of people on the platform but everyone has their own room where they're talking. >> that's paul davison, co-founder and ceo of clubhouse,

silicon valley's perhaps busiest startup this week, talking about the company's prep is. an audio approach only to social media which, by the way, saw an influx of users after elon musk hosted his own room and interviewed the ceo of robinhood. clubhouse led by horowicz valuing it just over a billion dollars. watch the full interview on cnbc.com yeah, and, jon, we haven't had a ton of time to talk startups, but you said it. one of the buzziest names. up next, he's always there when we call, grammy nominated musician ja rule don't go anywhere. you want to buy my stocks? >> i'm good, thank you but out of curiosity who else invested in gamestop

>> oh, ja rule >> best of luck to you hey frank, our worker's comp insurance is expiring, should we just renew it? yeah, sure. hey there, small business owner. pie insurance here with some sweet advice to stop you from overpaying on worker's comp. try pie instead and save up to 30%. thirty percent? really? get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie.com. wow, that is easy. so, need another reminder? no, no no, i'm good. uh, yes please. oh. ho ho ho, yeah! need worker's comp insurance? get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie.com.

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restrictions on trading certain stocks joining us is grammy nominated recording artist ja rule ja, good morning good to have you >> hey, good morning how are you all doing? thanks for having me >> i'm good. so tell me what's your history with robinhood, what got you into it, what have you been trading, and are you in any of these -- i don't know whether to call it reddit-driven meme stocks what do you think? >> actually, i love robinhood. i love what they represent, putting basically the stock market in your pocket. really cool. let lets retail traders trade really quick in real time and makes you feel like you're on the floor with the traders a cool app i was really upset what they did the other day because it kind of felt like everything they stood

for, even their name, robinhood, it kind of all just went in the dump on what they did the other day by freezing some of the trading on certain stocks and those stocks happened to be the stocks that were in question from those guys we bet, wall street bets. a shout out to those guys for shaking things up. my advice would be for people, whoever is following what's going on, to be very careful there have been some people who made money on those stocks, of course be very careful. there's been a lot of people who have lost money in the stocks. the stock market is a very fun place for young millennials on there shaking things up. i would advise people to be careful. >> so what would your advice be to robinhood itself? it was a darling in the social

media set for a while and now the tide has certainly turned in certain ways based on what happened last week i mean, you experienced that with fire festival, how people who were all for something can turn against it when things don't go as they expect. what would you tell robinhood to do here? >> robinhood got to let them trade. you've got to let people trade, man. i mean, i think the real situation of what's going on is, i don't think the ceo had the money to cover the actual money that was going through the platform you know, the margins. i don't think he had enough to cover the margins. so i think that's what's really what the freezing is about i don't know, but it just looks like, you know, it's playing into the hands of the big wall street guys, the big hedge fund guys that's what it looks like, playing into their hand and kind of siding with those guys

instead of what robinhood stands for and letting the little guy trade. >> ja, you know, a lot of people wonder what kind of legal risk robinhood is under, but they do say the terms of service, i understand robinhood may discontinue my account and any services related to my account immediately with written notice. you think anybody actually read that >> people usually don't read the fine print and i'm pretty sure what robinhood did is within the guidelines of what's in that fine print but nonetheless, people are mad. people are angry you heard elon musk talk about it you heard mark cuban talk about it even aoc talking about it. it's an issue, it's a problem and people are angry and they should be because this is the app that claims this is about free trade and they took that power away from people

>> ja, it's deirdre. good morning since you waded into the gamestop fray on thursday when that stock actually hit its highest level so far, i just wonder what do you think gamestop will be worth three years from now do you think it will be worth more or less than it's at currently? >> it's funny because the reason these stocks are shorted in the first place is because these companies were doing bad you know, gamestop, amc. brick and mortar stores not able to open up because of the pandemic so, you know, these big hedge fund guys shorted shtarted shors companies. i don't know where they'll be in the next couple of years i think the pandemic and stuff is going to let us know how those companies are going to survive. >> your tweet was very confident though, ja you said hold the line on a day when gamestop went above $400.

so here you're saying, your advice is to be careful but just a few days ago, hold the line. >> listen. >> which is it >> here's the thing. when i said talking about holding the line, i was actually, for that day of what was going on, i felt like this was like a war being waged against the little guy from the hedge fund guys and these guys, i didn't actually get in on gamestop stock i wish i did because a lot of people got rich on that movement, but like i said, the company is actually not doing well at the moment so do i think the stock will stay there i don't think so but the way the stock played with, i felt like if we hold these guys would have to get on our side of it and guy the stock, you know, to save their money so they don't lose money on the short that was my thinking of it

not so much of hold it forever and this is going to be a stock that kind of grows a ton i wouldn't advise that >> ja, that's the part to me of some of this that makes me scratch my chin is that you can, on the one hand, say i'm playing for me to win, and then you can on the other hand say i'm playing for the hedge fund or the bank to lose it gets tricky when you try to have it both ways. >> it does, it does. >> i wonder. i wonder how that's going to get figured out by these traders, but i want to ask you about further your involvement in tech, in apps. i've been a robinhood user for a while but got interests beyond that what's the role for somebody with along standing brand like you have, a creative mind like you have, what are you working on >> oh, man, well, right now, i'm working on my tech company as we speak.

it's called icon shameless plug yeah, but it's a live streaming platform that allows content creators to monetize their content. so really cool concept and it's growing right now. it's in beta right now, and it's actually doing very well as it's in beta. got a lot of early aadaptdaptats cool stuff going on. >> best of luck. ja rule joining us on these markets, robinhood and a little bit. >> thanks for having me, guys. and i see y'all try to sneak in the fyre festival on me. love you guys though >> wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't mention. you know, social media when you see one. >> love you guys >> you're a good sport >> i got a great sense of humor. to know me is to love me much love, y'all >> much love

>> thanks, that was fantastic. guys, watch ford this morning. a little rip here on the announcement of a 6 year deal with google that will make the tech giant responsible for much of ford's in-vehicle connectivity outside of the car, use ai and supply chain logistics and manufacturing. by the way, alphabet does report tomorrow night more "squawk alley" after the break.

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we have spent a lot of time talking about the reddit trade or rebellion as some call it but we do have a big week of earnings, alphabet, amazon, alibaba all reporting over the next few days at a time too when big tech, amsz azon even has bea relative underperformer this year >> those unusual trades continue i look at gopro up 16% that stock has not been doing great. we'll see where this week leads, carl >> indeed, john, as we keep an eye on the earnings calendar, of course, tomorrow night, google is up along with amazon and amgen electronics arts and

chipotle later in the week and qualcomm and others. by the way, we do have news from dow jones originally that robinhood has now raised another $2.4 billion from shareholders citing people familiar that's $3.4 billion raised since last thursday and dow jones points out, that is more than the company has raised in its entire prior existence we'll watch that get to the judge >> carl, thank you so much welcome to "the halftime report." front and center this hour, amid calls that a correction has arrived and is likely to get worse. so does the investment committee agree with that? we debate and discuss today for the hour with steve weisz, pete najarian, kevin o'leary, etf good day on this first day of february we're green across the board dow is good for 230 and then s&p an