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tv   The Exchange  CNBC  February 2, 2021 1:00pm-2:00pm EST

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>> thermal fisher. greater quarter [ laughter ] >> crowd strike. >> general motors. should be a great quarter. >> yeah, a nice gain there. all right. amazon, apple, the countdown is on, and what a great day for the stocks and a great couple of days for the s&p since november, and thank you for watching us. "the exchange" is now. ♪ >> thank you, scott and the gang. hello, everybody. yes, indeed "the exchange" begins now. i'm brian sullivan, a lot to do and a lot to get to on this very busy tuesday and so we will get right to it, and enough of the talk, and the reddit rally is running out of steam, and many of the trader stocks are crashing down and many of them are pointing the blame right at robinhood. and a critical update on the most important story in america, the vaccine rollout, and how is it really going?
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the facts and on the ground insight ahead. will amazon deliver? is uber really a food delivery company? and why the former head of gm is the latest to get into the spac race, and all of this is ahead, but we have to get into the markets and the big time rally with the biggest names out there with the biggest pace since november. all three major indexes up for the third time in four days, and the dow is up 605 points and the nasdaq is up nearly 2% as well. energy, oil and banks leading the way. as they say on another famous street, the let over the day is "a" alphabet and amazon. both reporting tonight, and both stocks are higher ahead of the results and almost exactly the same, 1.8%. a lot of numbers are already out. they came out this morn and some of the highlights. u.p.s. is higher, and it beat results, and exxon mobile in the green with the losses there
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narrowed and pfizer is a little bit in the red down 3% as the earnings per share fell short. now, let's look at what i call the goat trade, get out and travel. expedia, bookings holding, disney, and hilton and the cruise lines, they are all surging up 3%, 4%, and 6% as the pace of the vaccinations are rolling on, and good news from astrazenica. and it is not sunshine on the street of dreams, because there is pain in the robinhood, and gamestop, stopped. the trade is down nearly $100, and nearly 48%, and this is $117 stock, and it was in over $400 just three trading days ago. amc, a similar picture. we were near $20 a few day ago, and amc has come all of the way down to $6. bed, bath & beyond not quite as bludgeoned as the others, but
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deep in the red. and many of the reddit message boards this morning saying they will hang on, but it has been a very, very tough ride on the stocks. and of course, we tend to show you like that, stock movements here on cnbc, but remember, options are a huge part of what is going on in the market, and particularly single stock options with weekly expirations, and if you know more about what is really going on under the hood, and chris murphy of susquehanna investment groups. it is great to have you on, and i want to start with the story stock, and gamestop, and you gave us the options trade last week, and what is the option set up on gme right now, and more importantly what is the setup telling you about the sentiment? >> well, you know, it is interesting, because we talk about all of the put volume last week, and we talk about the stock moving lower and who is hurt there, but it is interesting to note that despite stock trading down
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significantly, implied volatility in the gme options is also down significantly, so you a situation to look at the call, sorry, the put option last week, and the march 100 puts for example, and you would expect just by the stock price move alone that those march 100 puts would increase in value dramatically this week, but because there is also the volatility component in options and volatility is down significantly along with the stock, what you are seeing is that the put, and the value of the put like the march 100 put is actually not up that much because volatility is down. >> all right. i want to take it a little bit of to weeds and the option action by the way, 5:30 p.m. every tuesday, and tune n and chris, there is a lot of talk about the shorts were bludgeoned out, and we know that and hesitant to put a short on the equity, and does that put option betting basically that the price
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is going to go down indicate to you, they are hedging a bullish bet on the stock or betting that the stock going to continue to fall and using options and not the equity >> we certainly saw a lot of the put volume and highlighted that in addition to the increase of the open interest, but what you are seeing today and in this week is the expectations, i believe, if you are looking will at the options and the stock for gme to return somewhat back to normal, and that is not going to only include the stock back to more normalized levels, but it is also the volatility going to turn back to the more normalized levels and the volatile city contracting a lot, and that is why you are seeing that the puts are not increasing in value quite as much ax on the investors who are looking to have a strong directional opinion of the stock, and not a strong directional opinion of the volatility should be looking at the spreads to express their opinions as opposed to the opinions outright, because when the implied levels are 300,
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400%, that parameter is going to crowd out the others and become the parameter, and so if you don't have a strong opinion on the volatility level, you are better to look at the spreads to express your directional opinions. >> okay. from the market perspective, you have a view on the overall macro level of the gamestop based on what you and your team are seeing, chris? >> yeah, for a little while now, we have been discussing, you know, the markets are mostly, you know, the equity markets are more likely to grind higher over time, but then when you are seeing a little bit too much froth, you are seeing the sharp quick pullbacks like we saw last week, and like we saw in, you know, the right before the election, and we saw it in august as well, so we had the expectations of the market to grind higher, but we are on the lookout for signs of froth for the short pullbacks like we saw, and now that we have reset a little bit, and more likely to grind higher again, and looking
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ut for certain signs of the froth as indicator that you are too ahead of ourselves and getting a sharp but quick pullback where the investors are going to look to buy the dip. >> but it is looking like grinding higher today, and this is a great insight on the micro and macro outlook, chris, so thank you very much. so as you saw, it is a very good micro outlook today. you have to vaccine news, and the astrazenica vaccine news, and the dow is on the best day in three months. and up 800 points in the last two sessions, and is that sharp reversal off of the friday fear of a sign that speculation may be over, and fundamentals and stimulus and free money or whatever is back, and joining us is katy nixon, and the chief investment officer and also
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jamie highman over at international investors the, and so, katy, what is today? a good stimulus news day or good vaccine news day or today, the good continuation of what is a long term trend, because there is $4.5 trillion cash sloshing around the globe >> i think that you nailed it, brian. last week was the blip, and this week, back to the old inflation rotation narrative and the investors are looking for the old recovery and the vaccine news, and washington is seeming to get a little bit more alignment in the stimulus package and we have heard from the fed last week they are not thinking about or thinking about raising the rates and easy money is going to be a character of the market for the foreseeable future, and you mentioned that the macro is positive, but the
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micro is positive, too, brian. we have had a good earnings season so far, and lots and lots of beats. we are expected to climb out of 2020 with a lot less earnings damage than we feared initially, and it is interesting that it is not just a u.s. phenomena and 80% beats in the emerging markets and in the european stocks, and so the micro and the macro are going in the same direction right now. >> yeah, and you know, semien, listen, i know that it is tough, and nobody is making light of it, but we will come out of it, and one of the predictions that i made is that 2022 is going to be the strongest economy that we will see in our lifetimes as we bust out. and cbo raising the estimates and some of the fed banks around the world raising estimates and ism is up, and you can't find a shipping container, because they are booked up and the price of oil is higher. are you as optimistic about the second half of this year in 2022
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as some of the more optimistic forecasts? >> no, that is right. i was not going to bring up the baltic dry index, because it is one of the things that the people always bring up in these instances, but all of the indicators are good, and the ism manufacturing that people expected it, but surprisingly, ism services has been well above 50 since june, so these are all indications that you mentioned the cbo, but i will bring in one more piece of stimulus that has to do with washington and the consumer and the household savings rate is through the roof since march, and a ton of pent-up demand and who has not had the conversation with the friend, hey, i'm waiting for the all-clear sign and i'm going on vacation and i'm going to do this or that, and you have puts us in the bullish camp b, but y have to be there, because the consensus earnings for 2021 and
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not only 2022 are 35% increase in earnings and we only need a little bit of the margin expansion, but it is a real number that has to get there. >> and now, follow up with you semien, and you can mention the baltic index there, and i have no problem as a commodities guy, and it is not up as much, but i is up, and the hard part about the story is 70 to 75% of the country has been saving money to your point. they are not going anywhere or doing anything, and banking the coin while the rest pretty much are out of work, because they are in travel and leisure, and tough story overall, but the question is how much more multiple expansion, simeon can this market and stock prices withstand? >> well, look, the market of course is not monolithic, and from our perspective, the trade here is that if you want to leave a little bit of, and you want to harvest some of the gains in the large cap space, and you want to rotate somewhere, we will suggest not necessarily rotating the value,
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and because of what you mention, this is not a straight line and there is hair out there, and we are not done with this, we think that the quality trade makes more sense as the example of the s&p 500 and dividend of the aristocrats that are companies that have grown the dividends for 25 straight years and they have grown the dividends 14% last year in the pandemic, a look, at a little discount, because they have been left behind, and so you can certainly look for things that are on sale, and sometimes you don't have to look to beaten down things to find things that are on sale. i mentioned the note that i sent over that online retail, the online retail which is up triple digit last year is on the 30% discount to the consumer discretionary sector, and you will get a play both on the growth of online, but also the reopening money if it is showing up, so i do think that you can be picky and choosy, but general bullishness, because the economy is turning the around. >> katie, anywhere you and your
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team are still seeing any of the -- and i mean, everything is up in prishgs and a measure of how much, and any value anywhere >> well, on the relative value perspective, we still like non-u.s. equities. that is certainly where you are going to get a big bang for your buck relative to the growth story and the trade later on 2021 and into 2022 and so we want to lean into the trade and value in the value of the cyclicals and it is interesting because the market itself is expensive and it is broadly expensive here in the u.s., and over half are selling 20% times earnings and so you have to look to where you can get the value for the valuation, right. and so where you are seeing the earnings bump and the leverage shoot to the upside is in the cyclical trades and so we like to lean into those non-u.s. equity markets. >> katie nixon and simeon hyman
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and looking into the discretion names ready to bust out. guys, thank you very much. coming up after the break, here on "the exchange" the latest on the ground facts of the latest vaccine rollout as we are going to take you back to where it started in december. plus, americans are relying on amazon more than ever in the pandemic, and the lockdowns buck can the company keep all of the new customers as we begin to reopen all of that and the dow is soaring up more than 600 points. we will take you the break showing you some of the winners. we are back after this.
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all right. welcome back to "the exchange" on this big market day. and you may not have realized, but yesterday was a important day in the fight against the pandemic, because yesterday was the first date of the total number of vaccinations is the first day of the total number of cases since it began last year and that number should grow to keep the cases and hospitalizations down. and since we first took you on the ground to louisiana and followed some to very first doses ever delivered back in december, the rollout has really ramped up with a record average of 1.4 million shots per day given and it is probably
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actually more than that, which means we could have 100 million shots in arms by early to mid-march, and that is not going to take into account a new j&j and/or astrazenica vaccine rolled out. so checking back in to where this all began and bringing in paul dixon jr., the vice president of operations at morris and dixon, the 180-year-old family-run companies that graciously allowed us in to watch them work, and we look forward to getting back to shreveport, and nonetheless, it has been a few months now, and what have we learned and what do we still have to learn? >> well, a lot of the confusion has died down once figuring out what administration sites can handle it, it is a whole lot smoother. last night, 18,000 doses came in, and left the same day in less than 12 hours, and that is how it should run.
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>> how can we speed up the process? >> ramp up supply. the demand is greater than is supply right now, and the distribution network is not a bottleneck. we are getting out every vaccine that is needed the same day, and so, breaking down the confusion, and making sure that we know exactly what sites need what and exactly when is how we can speed it up. >> part of the -- >> moving into the normal supply chain. >> that is it. so i want to focus on that, paul, because you and i have talked about it and i have spoken about it with others down in florida, and other states, and what they are saying is and many other people in america forget and who can blame them, we vaccinate 175 million people every year, and we get a flu vaccine and we don't think about it, and go to local pharmacy and get the shot and go home, and it is not a big thing, and the bottleneck is because we are creating and rightly so by the way, prioritization groups and cvs said pretty soon, they will
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be vaccinating and once we hit the normal supply chain, and the work that you and your team do every single day, and how much faster do you think that we can go assuming that the supplies are there? >> it is as fast as the supplies come, and the distribution of the pharmaceuticals happen everyday, and 30,000 items like the flu, and never a hold up. every pharmacy in america has what they need in less than 12 hours. and getting the vaccine distributed through the wholesale supply chain, and the pharmaceuticals is not a bottleneck at all, and we can move as fast as the supply comes to us. >> and we are showing that individual oaf when we were there, and it is still gets me every time as the team is working the vials out of the negative 70 into the coolers and following, you know, ray down the road to lake charles. when we get, i assume, the j&j vaccine and it does not require the ultra cold temperatures, how much more will a normal
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temperature, and normal vaccine also help speed it up and not rely on big thermofisher freezers that you are standing in front of, paul? >> it is not one of the big bottlenecks, because the big bottleneck is determining which site can handle how many vaccines and that is making sure that the patients are available, and the people are available to administer. so the cold nature of the product cold chain is not the hurdle for the distribution side of it, and we handle this type of stuff everyday. refrigerated or frozen product is not a problem for the distribution chain. >> and here is the question, paul, you are down there in louisiana and people in the south, they just won't take it, right? and we have talked about the herd immunity, and everybody has a different view, but the reality is that there is one-third of the country based on the surveys that are simply not going to take it, and don't dive into that, but as you are
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distributing it into the hospital, you see it firsthand, there are health care workers who are not going to take it. >> that is right. we have seen, and again, we are not a vax ccinator or administration site, but i understand that one-third of the people are really willing and one-third can be convinced and one-third are not willing. so you can see it that the different sites will accept different amounts each week, and the ability to vaccinate the different allotment is going to vary the people they can get to vaccinate. >> paul dixon jr. at morris and dickson and we were down there in december watching the very, very first shots into the arms as well and you are ramping it up, and am looking to see it going into the normal supply chains like you do with thousands of drugs. thank you for joining us at cnbc. thank you, paul. >> thank you, brian. >> and as long as the supply is there, ramp it up quick.
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all right. on deck, uber, investors are raisinge ining the glass, as th company drives into the alcohol market say what the real story. plus the former gm chair going into spac space. and contessa brewer is going speak to him of what they want to accomplish with gaming, and how the vaccine is going for him, and he oversees it. and speaking of games, all of the casino games are going higher. and now, as people are getting closer to getting out, it is vegas, baby, vegas.
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all right. welcome back to the exchange on this busy tuesday and we have a rally in stocks or the continuation of maybe the rally that began yesterday, and getting more positive news in the fight against covid, and also the astrazenica trials out there, and cvs saying they will vaccinate eligible patients in 11 states and you heard what our guests said about getting people in the normal chains. and we are seeing the dow up 566, and the high was 628 and not dithering in a nearly up 2% market, and right now the dow up on the pace of the best one-day gain since early november. and checking on the bonds, too, because the bonds are moving a
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little bit higher as well, and the dollar index, and remember that it is at the highest since early december b and oil, it is trading at the highest level in more than a year. we are seeing the crude oil coming up as more people are taking to the roads and the skies and by the way, taking to the seas because global shipping is up, and global shipping is using a lot of oil and gas, and we are seeing the silver down 10%, and remember yesterday, silver really was the story, and surging double digits to the highest level in eight years, and we are seeing the comex silver trading down 10%. so stepping outside of the world of business to seema mody. >> brian, this is what is happening this hour in d.c. and the senate has easily confirmed pete buttigieg for secretary of transportation. and more contentious is the homeland secretary to start in
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an hour. and russia has sentenced alexei navalny to spend 2 1/2 years in prison, and german leaders are calling for his immediate release. in rochester new york, one officer has been put on release after a family has called for a hee police officers pepper sprayed the youngster. and now, punxsutawney phil saw his shadow on the ground hog day, and even if there is not spectators to see him, there is some groundhog dissent, an illinois woodstock willie all expect an early spring it is a silly tradition, brian, but it is somewhat endearing. >> i am going with beaubeaurega and willie, and i want punxsutawney phil to go back
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into the hole, and i want to see them do it with the honeybadger. and if you survive pulling him out of the hole, spring starts tomorrow. >> i am with you. >> the honeybadger saw his shadow and then ate everybody. thank you. we have amazon after the bell, and she is like, i don't know why he is on of the. and gamestop could get the hollywood treatment, and all of that and more after the episode of rapid fire, a i hope to be there with you in two minutes, so tune in.
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amazon's results after the bell, and the boozey beat, and where is the beef? and rapid fire to bring it back as things went back to normal here a little bit and here with the hot takes of the day deidre b bosa and mike santoli and kate. and so, now, looking at the
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billion revenue club to join amazon and apple, and so amazon is only up 7% versus 17% for the index, and so could this report be the catalyst to break it out of the slump. and deidre bosa, what are you expecting on the numbers themselves and how big might they be? >> well, we are expecting extremely big numbers. $100 billion revenue quarter is a starting point. a lot of folks on the street think it is going to be bigger than that, but the key here, brian, it is profitability which is not something that we usually attribute to amazon, and hait hs a free pass for several years, but over the last few year, it is a financially more disciplined company, and the street is going to be looking for that profit margin for the company especially when it is spending billions and billions of dollars not only on covid relief, but building it out further, and one-day shipping and that is key. what amazon sort of says about
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the quarter ahead, because while the revenue is firing on all cylinders, this is already amazon's most profitable year. >> you know, michael santoli, are we learning? it is possible that the overall market can go up even if amazon is not leading the cart? >> yeah, we have learned it labor day that the stock is $100 below the september 1st high, and it is sideways and still up on the 100 basis points, and massive, massive move off of the lows and it has done this gone sideways and netflix had a similar setup to the earnings and nothing for months and then blowout numbers and yes, it is a broader number, and the waiting in the s&p 500, and the biggest stock is down somewhat from the all-time highs recently, but it is too early to be an either/or market, and these guys can participate if everything else is going up, too. >> and kate rodgers, and how many boxes are you breaking
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down, because you can't go out to do anything in california, so how many boxes do you like recycle? >> we do get a lot of amazon prime deliveries here, and we have started to use the whole food grocery delivery which is something that i had shyed away from, but in q4 many more restriction tas and covid cases surging and one of the reasons that it is a strong quarter for amazon, and the ban become of america poined pointed out thata in be a better position than its competitors. whole foods is one that i have not done before, but many consumers are relying on it, and if we go back to it, and i am not sure. >> i hope we go back to the stores, because i would like to see them stay in business. and kate, the quick snake around, because uber is going to make a drizzly, the alcohol
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delivery service, and uber is buying it for a billion cash, and that is the largest ecommerce alcohol business and so that is go to make sure that my 15-year-old self would not order beer, and i'm yeah, the sausage king of chicago, and talk to me about this deal, and we know that drizzly founders are being paid. >> yeah, absolutely huge, huge deal this morning and looking at the food and restaurant face, and how important is alcohol delivery is to struggling restaurants, brian, and that is something that i thought of when uber eats and the platform is key. so i am wondering and maybe deidre would know better than me if you can mix ticket items when you order to eat, and cocktails to go is something that has helped the independent restaurants when they are struggling at this time, and so next step for uber to wade into
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that market, because as to my last point, consumer preference is shifting. >> maybe it is a next natural step, but again, like some other steps, maybe they are late. the ceo is an operator and he tends to buy the companies to plug different vendors into the platform, and, you know, with the mixed results. so compare what uber has just done and announced today with some of the other business models there is a company based in philadelphia called gopa that is taking a amazon-like approach and owning the end to end the infrastructure, and the technology and the liquor licenses and like in food delivery which uber has lagged behind and doordash has increased the market share and overtaken uber in a big way, and doordash has its own convenience store, and are you ordering the wine when you order the food delivery or ordering from the convenience store model to get
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the essentials and the wine at the same time? >> i hope that my 22-year-old self would have said cannabis and jack in the box should have tied up together. and uber is a big company, michael santoli, and they want to be a technology company, and delivering food and a couple of burgers and by the way, burning carbon in the driveways always running, is that the way to get the 25 or 50 multiple? >> well, you know, it is technology, because of essentially what you are is the app and the dispatch and the hub. so i mean, that is going to be basically the argument is as good as it was when uber became public in a sense, but what is interesting is that 90% of the purchase price is in the uber shares so uber is saying a little bit more than 1% of the market cap, we are going to bet on this company which is maybe, it is too much too little, but it is not a tremendous wager. >> a lot of people trying to make money doing the same thing as the burger is cold in the
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passenger seat. all right. impossible food items are about to get less expensive and the company is slashing prices by 20%, and marking the first time it is mark-down prices and the third time in last year that it is permanently discounting some product, and the restaurant distributors received price cuts in 2020 and again in january and will the cheaper prices help to drive people away from just meat or really, let's be honest, it is about taste. not price. >> i think it is about all of those things, brian. so to both impossible and beyond meat are trying to get the customers who are seeking the nonmeat choice hss once in a wh, and get them to once in a while to get closer to the parity of the beef price, and beyond meat
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had lowered the prices and they have a cookout pack that is in the stores and they said that they want to have one product in each category by 2024 that would be on the parity with the actual meat product here. so you can see the discounting is important, and now it is going to continue to be important and just like starbucks is seeing the success with the alternative milk and nut-based milk options is something that the consumers are gravitating to and adding to the rotation, and those customers flexing into the category are going to continue to be important to all of brands moving forward. >> but again, deidre, a space, and whatever you think of the product and maybe you love it and some people do and some people don't, there is a lot of competition, and again, just growing competition for the consumer buck. >> yeah, and the stock price of beyond meat, and tough break for the company yet to turn an annual profit, and now it is engaging in some type of price war with impossible food, and it
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is going to be tougher. and remember, this is a public company, so you can see it a lot clearer than you can impossible foods, and perhaps impossible food is able to raise more food to subsidize the prices. >> all right. finally, get this, gamestop maybe going hollywood. at least two different projects and one on netflix and mgm are reportedly under investment to look at what happened with reddit and turn it into a cultural phenomena and they could watch it on cnbc to see it play out in realtime. but is there enough meat here to turn it into a movie >> i can see why you would want to see it cinematic, and underdogs and humbling temporarily of some billionaires, and so i get it, but we had two snl sketches that made reference to it last week,
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and if you needed another sign that maybe we reached a crescendo of attention on this narrow story in the past few days and have them soliciting scripts on it might be one of them. >> and by the way, it is a -- it's a bad movie today down 116 and a lot people are getting burned and trading limits on the platforms and people are going to be ticked off and probably lawyering up. deidre bosa, what do you think, enough here? somebody did point out on twitter and i can't remember who, but the guy roaring kitty who started this whole thing on the gamestop, and the sea of robinhood look almost too much alike, wink, wink. >> yeah, i think that i also saw two others the dragged into that meme or whatever you want to call it. >> did you see that? >> adam neumann was one of them, and there is a striking similarity to some of the people, and some of the most interesting people that we talk about. brian, is there enough there yes. we have a front row view to this
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everyday, and it is one of the most exciting weeks on cnbc that we have had such interesting conversations, and where it goes from here, that is anybody's guess, and maybe it is a more interesting storyline or perhaps boring one, and that is not too bad either, but i am sure that hollywood will find a way to, you know, dial up the drama. >> i saw ben medrick's name was involved and i have never met the guy, but he has been rumored to maybe write the book or maybe half written and it is going to be playing out well for maybe the retail investors and deidre, and michael and kate, and i appreciate it and very good rapid fire. all right. still ahead, the pandemic keeping people out of the casinos for the most part, but mgm is putting a bet on social gaming and spac, and so now we will have contessa brewer with
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more on that coming up. and bitcoin all over the place in the last couple of weeks and up $11.85, and up 35,000%, and ethers are also up. we are back after this they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't. let's take care of business. at&t. these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. a hybrid cloud approach with watson ai helps manage supply chains while predicting demands with ease.
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and have historically low risk. call today to request your free bond guide. 1-800-376-4376. that's 1-800-376-4376 all right. welcome back to "the exchange," everybody. and now, more on the spac gaming world and contessa brewer with more on this and special guests. hello, contessa. >> hello, brian. and now the agreement just cemented bringing together some well known names in gaming and the spac is brought together with andrew pascal and jim murren. now, play studios is offering well known casual games on apps and social media games and these
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are free to play like my vegas black jack, but the players earn real rewards like a night at mgm resorts and a partner to play studios and they have nearly 300 such partner around the globe, and big plans for expansion. this deal values the play studios at $1.1 billion, and the institutional investors blackrock, clear bridge, and newberger have signed on already, and joining me now for the first exclusive on cnbc is jim murren and andrew pascal. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> and jim, you bring to the table, a wealth of knowledge about the world of gaming and by that i mean gambling. and where it can go digitally. what are the hopes and expectations for this acquisition? >> well, i believe firmly of the intersection between live entertainment like casino
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gambling and digital entertainment and i think that consumers are increase lig looking for opportunities to consume entertainment in multiple channels. and play is right in the center of that gaming space, and allowing the customers to redeem real stuff in the live world. so, i expect that play studios will be able to use the great franchise of great games, and great mechanics with the one of a kind loyalty platform that no other company has been able to achieve to be able to embark on a very aggressive m&a strategy to propel the company vastly forward. >> let's talk a little bit about the m&a strategy, andrew to, grow the company where your customers are not paying for anything, and playing for free, and what are the goals for the capital that you get >> well, as jim characterized,
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we feel like we have proven out this unique model where people come and download games from the app stores and they play them for free, and as they do, they accumulate all of the great benefits that they can take advantage in the real world. so we built the platform and the tools, and the refined sensibilities of a run platform in a business like that, and we scale it up. we built the games organically with the teams and the studios around the globe, and now we want to take the resource and the currency from doing this transaction and go to find great companies with great games of their own and a network of players and then integrate into the framework so that we can bring the benefits the of loyalty and all of the partners like the mgm group to those propositions, and then scale and grow our business. >> i have been told that people, and let's use mgm and jim is familiar with it as am i, and the people who go
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to use their rewards at the mgm and they are sticky and use their rewards there, and the hope to transition and convert those customers playing black jack on the app for free to turn them into actual black jack plays through the igaming where it is legal? >> look it is beyond a hope. we that out. we've been running and operating our business in this model for nearly nine years and we deliver millions of new customers to our partners across the globe, mgm being obviously one of many but a very important partner so we've proven it it works and people love it. the consumers delivering to our partners demonstrating they're at least equal if not greater value to them than the consumers they're sourcing through these kind of proportional tactics it's been very productive. >> and contessa, what also
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happens is a company like mgm or royal caribbean or many of andrew's partners, when they want to launch a new restaurant or show and they want to reintroduce themselves to their customers, they're using playstudios and its database in order to provide that trial for that customer. it's a great customer acquisition tool and also a great tool to reactivate dormant customers. mgm i know uses that deliberately and that's why this convergence between live and digital is so great >> brian sullivan, if i could jump in here guys. sorry to bomb in on this i want to congrats on the deal and talk about something else, jim. because you're the head of the coronavirus public private task force in nevada and we just talked to somebody, a drug distributor. nevada used about 67% of its available shots. what can you guys, because these are, i know people look to the federal government, which has
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done some things but this is a state by state operation for the most part. what can you do in nevada to speed it up? do you think we need to use more of that already existing supply chain and the pharmacies because you've got a large elderly population and a lot of people that are out of work and want people to get back to vegas. >> so we started off slowly on vacci vaccinations, it's going to be a public/private partnership the private sector, mgm, caesar's, energy, nevada gold mines are all deploying their resources to help distribute the vaccine as rapidly and broadly as possible. so you're going to see a big spike of vaccinations over the next several months beginning immediately and i think that's going to have a big impact on consumer confidence and it's going to have a big impact on visitation back to the shows and the restaurants of las vegas in
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the second half of the year. >> jim's got his hands in a lot of different pots right now. even though he's no longer running a big global company jim, looking forward to any news here on spak 2 information on where play studios goes from here thank you guys. >> thanks so much. >> brian >> thank you, contessa we appreciate you bringing the story and the guest to us. thank you for letting me jump in on the vaccine question. take care. >> sure. all right, still ahead nobody better than contessa. goldman sachs says it is impossible for retail traders to short squeeze silver they say it's just not possible. disagree tell you why they say it, next don't forget, you can watch us live, on the go on the cnbc app. "the exchange" will be right back bitcoin up 1400.
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welcome back unfortunately for some, silver price looking like lead today getting back what they gained
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yesterday. all the talk of squeezing the silver market was one of the biggest headlines out there as another army of redditers or tweeters in debate which online army exactly tried to execute a short squeeze on the precious metal. many still moving to hurt big banks and running the price up but according to one of the banks, goldman sachs to be exact, it may be an impossibility structurally due to the nature of the commodities market, it's not like shorting stocks they have protocols they can slap in place to avoid huge r run-ups in prices like raising margins like the cme did last night. some of you may disagree or just want to learn more and to do that, go to cnbc.com/pro that does it for "the exchange." bitcoin is up. markets up "power lunch" will pick up the rally. we'll see you tomorrow
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everybody, to "power lunch." i'm tyler mathisen and here is 2:00 takeout a rally on wall street but not for gamestop no way the stock is down 50%. so

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