reddit trading frenzy. we've got that going for us, calling the ountry's top regulators to assemble it's wednesday, february 3rd, i thought we would just replay yesterday's show they didn't think that was funny. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ regulators mound up it was a clear black night a clear white moon ♪ ♪ warren g was on the streets trying to consume ♪ >> good morning, everybody welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. it is not ground hog's day, we're here, new day, new things going on. >> would have been funny. >> and we are watching the u.s. equity futures. >> kwyeah, it would have been funny. >> would have been funny if we just played the tape, started out with that. people at home would have been going, just like the movie >> kwwe're going to save that fr april fool's day that's coming up not too far

from now. >> that's a good idea. >> you're going to see the dow futures are indicated up by about 60 points, this comes after a gain of 475 points yesterday. better than 1 1/2%, and the best day that the dow has seen since all the way back to november if you're watching the s&p this morning, it's indicated up close to 15 points that was after the s&p was up sharply, up by 52 points for a gain of 1.4%, and the s&p over the last two trading sessions up by 3%. that's something to keep an eye on, too. also the nasdaq this morning, cocoa get down the nasdaq this morning indicated up by about 100 points after the nasdaq was up pretty sharply all week in fact, for the week today is up 4%. the treasury yields this morning, you can see 10% or the ten-year note, yielding 1.17%. yes, he's trying to get ahold of the camera and take it away. everybody wants to get a piece of this camera, right. check out shares of gamestop he's a morning cat, you know, he

sleeps all day, but he's up right now. shares of gamestop have been volatile after hours after a drop of 60% during yesterday's session, you're going to see the stock right now up by about 10%, but the stock is down 70% from friday's close. we're also watching amc. that stock was down by 41% during yesterday's session, and if you take a look right now, you'll see that it is up by about 7.8% those two stocks by the way, amc and gamestop, they're the only ones still being restricted on robinhood's platform today customers will be allowed to increase their positions to 1,250 shares of amc and 100 shares of gamestop andrew >> thanks, becky some other news this morning relates to all of this, though, because treasury secretary janet yellen, as joe mentioned at the top of the show, is calling for key financial regulators to meet this week, the topic, market volatility driven by retail trading in gamestop and other

stocks secretary yellen is convening the head of the s.e.c., the federal reserve, the new york fed and the commodity futures trading commission, sought an ethics waiver on the topic because she had been paid fees by the key player now. a treasury official telling cnbc the meeting could be called for as early as today, and it will be very interesting to see what that group thinks should or should not happen. what kind of steps they could take to try to tamp down volatility, tamp down this kind of thing, but of course in this environment, trying to limit that kind of trading might be considered -- might be considered trying to help the establishment. i don't know it's going to be very fascinating to see what happens next with all of this but also given the fact that gamestop has traded down as far as it has, perhaps other lessons are being learned in the process we're also watching shares, i should say, watching silver prices this morning.

they dipped yesterday after the cme group raised margin requirements for silver futures. that move was based on a normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, very similar to what we saw happen to robinhood, the clearinghouses said, look, the way this works, you can trade today but you're going to have to put up more and more deposits with this volatility we're seeing that play out here, and i imagine we're going to start seeing this in other places too, depending on whether social media enabled groups get together in the future. >> i can't speak to the robinhood, but for commodities, this is the most common thing in the world, andrew. whenever commodities get volatile or soar to new highs, they're constantly adjusting margin requirements which they have to do what do you put down on a futures contract, not very much, so if all of a sudden it's worth -- >> it's managing risk. >> twice as much, it's simple math that happens all the time.

so if we see people say wait a minute, you can't do that, to silver, i mean, that happens all the time that's business as usual let's get on to jeff bezos he's stepping aside, the amends ceo. he's 57. he's going to have a good life he's been kind of executive chairman for a while, people say, did you read that, that no one's really ever seen him at the seattle campus, and they're not sure if they have ever seen him there. he's going to become executive chairman of the board, and intends to focus on new products and early initiatives. the company's top cloud executive, andy jassy, no relation to hugh, i'm told, he's going to take over the ceo role in the third quarter much more on the ceo's succession later this hour we're going to talk to management guru, jeff sonnenfeld, thank you for being here, becky. at least i get you i get you every once in a while. you remember bart simpson. >> it took me a second >> he calls mo at the bar and

says could i speak to mr. hugh jass there's other ones anyway, but we digress this is andy jassy, not hugh jassy. meantime, amazon's earnings of 14.09 beat estimates of 7.23 a share. that's easy to say, 14.09 beat estimates of 7.23, the analyst community, they need to go back to their spreadsheets. revenue of $125 billion also beat estimates and it marked the first time amazon's revenue exceeded $100 billion in a quarter. that's also easy to say but hard to fathom. revenue exceeded $100 billion. i think this walmart -- >> by the way, it didn't just exceed $100 billion in a quarter. it exceeded $125 billion, so it was the first time they went over 100 million

they didn't just step over the line they smacked it out of the park. >> a nonholiday quarter, expecting 100 to $106 billion in the first quarter. that's a slow down, obviously, sequentially from the fourth quarter but 33% higher than the same quarter a year ago. did you shovel, becky? did you shovel yesterday >> no. >> i didn't. matt did it all. >> i did >> yeah, matt did it all >> yeah, yeah, yeah. i am so sore and stiff, and i didn't shovel -- i wasn't doing the whole drive away i'm just trying to get to the car. there were 30 inches of snow out here andrew, is your staff stiff? do you know whether they're complaining about sore backs or -- >> i've heard about back issues and knee issues is what i keep hearing about. >> really? from all of them >> we don't have a long driveway like you, joe. we just live in the little city of new york city where there is

no staff, but yeah, i know about back issues and knee issues, so yes. >> but to get to the passenger side, i looked at it, i was like, it's just not your normal snow it's like i got to try to go from here to there in waist high, that's a lot like you start at the top. >> and by the way, it's heavy snow, too. it's not light snow. i will say just from running around playing in it, it is not the fluffy stuff that looks expanded this is heavy, 2 feet of snow plus. >> and you read about people that maybe haven't been that active lately. i had a birthday recently. and you wonder. >> got to be careful >> it's like, no, that's probably just a stiff sore left arm. that's nothing to be concerned about. it's scary it is, you need to take a little break in between this was big, was it not it's a lot of global warming >> a lot of snow. >> that dumped on us yesterday.

>> why are you laughing? >> we should go back to bezos for a minute i saw that yesterday, and i have to say my chin kind of literally fell open when i was reading the headline about it. then i read bezos's note and letter about why he's doing it, and i get it, and it makes sense, and you mentioned that, you know, he's been out there doing other things for a while maybe not a huge surprise, except for that, you know, he's not going to be completely disconnected he still gets to be involved with the whole thing but gets to do what he wants to do, and there are other people there recognizing they're running the day-to-day operations t. it's a great job he gets to do what he wants to do, and laying out in the letter, the things they have accomplished, i forgot about one click shopping that was a big deal when they actually did that. that was before 2,000 because i wrote about it for the "wall street journal." that was such a revolutionary idea, and now we think about it as being nothing

that's the best thing you can possibly hope for is people yawn at your innovation because they become so common place so many things along the way, the focus on customers what they have done with the cloud. they have done so many things along the way. i was amazed, reading the quick list of some of their accomplishments. i had forgotten about some of them. >> he's going to spend more time on his place on mars he's rarely able to get there at this point, the commute, but i'm sure there's going to be more of that stuff, right, these vanity projects maybe it's not a vanity project anymore. maybe it's real, but i'm sure that's going to take up some of his time did you see that one of his many projects was echo, which i do not use at all do you guys have those things? do you have a -- >> i don't >> whatever it is, alexa >> up an alexa >> yeah. >> that wasn't a vanity project.

that was one of the greatest innovations that we have seen over the last decade >> he started on that. i mean, it wasn't delivering books, it was one of the things he wanted to be able to, you know, it's innovative, but that was one of his projects that started out. want me to read it to you? it's right here. did you read the article, andrew, it's right there echo >> i've read the articles. to be honest with you, i think that we are -- i don't want to say we're overplaying the headline because i think the real truth, and those that follow this company over the last five years, this is basically what's been happening. i know andy well by the way, i have seen jeff at the headquarters i have been in seattle probably about a year ago with both of them so i think, like, i don't think this is a huge shift in terms of what's happening at all. i think this is just a formalization of what's basically been in the works, and i think when you look at wilke leaving, what was it, last year, clearly that was the sign --

>> august of last year when he said that he was going to be stepping down and retiring. >> that andy was going to get the job, and i think that probably relates to some of this this has been a long time in the works, and relatively telegraphed to those who have been following it, not even that closely. i think the biggest investors in amazon knew this was in the offing at some point. >> and then there's all the other stuff that we have read in recent years about him he's got things going on he's got a lot of things going on a lot of things happening. he's got a life. he's got a life beyond amazon. i'd like to fly around the world, you know, eating a perisian restaurants when they're reopening, and stop off in tahiti on my own little island next door he can do all that stuff now it probably is, he sayst s it's

consuming to run amazon. it would be, wouldn't it like you're saying, kind of the executive chairman it would be nice to have somebody else. everybody does it, gates did it, and the google guys, and everybody eventually hands over the reins, it seems like not in tv, though. >> it's been 27 years, and you imagine, i mean, part of what he said in his note was the biggest thing he used to get asked all the time was what's the internet he doesn't get asked that anymore, but that tells you how long he's been doing this, and how much things have evolved over that period of time 27 years is a long time, too he's only 57, but 27 years is a long time to be grinding away at stuff. let's take a look at alphabet shares this morning they're surging after earnings came in at $22.30 a share. beating expectations of 15 prnt -- 15.90.

$3 billion higher than the street was expecting advertising revenue up 22 percent from the same quarter last year, a sharp turn around from the 8% drop in the on set of the pandemic in the second quarter, and cloud revenue by 47% year over year they lost a lot of money on the cloud. just tells you that they are beefing up and are really willing to come after this it's not just that they were spending money on serve r farms and other things a lot of that was on sales staff that they were spending on too that tells you, with deep pockets and the willingness to commit, there are going to be new channels that continue to come to aws and the other players that are the biggies in cloud right in and out folks, when we come back, is reddit mania unraveling or just getting started. we're going to talk about the volatility with barry knapp. and today's "squawk" planner, we're going to be getting adp private payrolls at 8:15 eastern time forecasters are expecting that the economy added 50,000 private

jobs in january. we're going to be hearing from biojen and glaxosmithkline, and lots of fed speak spoas well. from the minneapolis, and chicago fed presidents f. we get adp today, you know what that ans on friday, jobs reports is coming stay tuned, "squawk box" will be right back

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welcome back, everybody. let's take a look at u.s. equity futures this morning you're going to see green arrows once again these are modest advances. yesterday you did look at significant gains with the dow up by better than 1 1/2%, the nasdaq 2, and the s&p up by about 1.4% this morning, dow futures up 38 points, s&p futures up by 14 and the nasdaq up by 92. let's bring in barry knapp, managing partner at ironside's macroeconomics, and there's been a lot of activity since the last time we talked to you. what do you make of everything that's happened with the retail trading, gamestop stock that have seen such rapid advances and declines, and how do you think that plays out with the broader market as we continue to push towards new highs >> i think probably the missing piece of the narrative around,

you know, the gamestop saga and all the related names, you know, bed bath & beyond, amc theaters, american airlines even, is first of all, the factor, you know, that this represents, which is low quality, really started a rally all the way back in november the short selling or performance of shorts started to deteriorate all the way back in november, and november is a important time because that's when we got the vaccine efficacy results as i was watching things unfold last week, all i could think of was what happened in 2003 after the 2 1/2 year bear market in tech stocks, the tech bubble burst and then in '03, we had a ferocious rally in technology companies, internet companies with seriously challenged business models. in some cases stocks had fallen from 100 down to 3, and a ferocious short rally, some big

hedge funds that had gotten the bear market right, short the low quality names and the long high quality names like the microsoft, and just getting run over, and some of them actually went and folded. of course the same thing happened in '09 with financial stocks, the highest quality companies under performed, the lowest quality companies performed best, so this is a big part of the business cycle, and the specific timing of it makes sense as well, right at the point where we went from a million vaccines per day which was the number on january 24th on a 7-day average, up to a million and a half per day, and the draconian lock downs, including new york city restaurants were getting lifted, this all was a big part of just a typical business pscycle and this particular business cycle in particular. this is a big story. you would expect it to persist i'm not suggesting gamestop will go back to the highs just saying that the lower

quality parts of the market will have a recovery, some might call it a dead cat bounce in some places, but this is typical of the business cycle, and i think that's the underlying stories just how strong the business cycle is, the recovery and global trade of manufacturing, the recovery in capital spending in the u.s. which will pick up and you saw it in the spending in the cloud last night, and what it means for the prices, and so that underlying cycle story is really strong it's really why this whole thing unfolded and it's just the missing piece of the narrative because it's so cool to talk about man bites dog, and beating up a bunch of nasty hedge funds. for me, that's the real story here >> in terms of the cycle, i'll say that you guys saw this coming you did downgrade communications in tech to market perform back in august. so that kind of plays out with what you're seeing with the

later stages of that part of the cycle. what do you like what areas do you think are worth a better than market average weigh in >> it really is that the cyclical sectors and inflation beneficiaries, so the materials sector, i had been under weight energy for years and years, and upgraded that around the turn of the year the financial sector, though, i'm somewhat concerned about the policy outlook there, but the financial sector for sure, and the industrial sector, because of the real -- part of the real story in the recovery in global manufacturing that's just so persistent i mean, we saw this week, we've got production order, supplier deliveries, prices, all surging and inventories, particularly at the customer level falling, it's recovering not just from the pandemic but from the trade war, which caused a recession in global manufacturing running back to mid 2018 those cyclical sectors are really powerful, and the implications for the bond market are big as well. i stuck my neck out back in

august, and called the end of the 39-year bond bull market, but as long as the inflation component is driving bond yields up, and that's what's happening right now, five-year inflation, just keep ticking up every day they never had a setback in january. as long as that's going on we really are getting inflationary, you know, a reflation surge that should push all those cyclical sectors higher. >> barry, what do you watch as a potential bump in the road, anything that could throw the forecast off, what do you look to as a signal that could turn things against what you're expecting? >> it's really about policy. this business cycle is likely to be much stronger than last one in part because largely, actually, because we don't have household debt to disposable income at all time highs it fell for ten years, and financial sector leverage is very low, so it's really the policy question.

we had move in real interest rates in january after the georgia elections when a few of the fed governors started talking about the potential or the possibility of taper you notice rob kaplan and steve's interview yesterday was careful about that they don't want to lose the signaling effect so that will eventually be a problem when the fed starts talking about tapering, sometime closer to mid year, i would assume, and it's public policy risk and when we're going to get the tax hikes. it likes like we may escape in the next stimulus bill with tax hikes not associated with it, but might be included in the build back america later in the spring the tax hikes, increase in capital gains is worth a multiple point, the increase in ko corporate tax rates with worth 5 to 7% on earnings growth that's a 10% negative impact on the equity markets really for me, it's all about

the policy risks do we tighten regulatory policy and the financials too much? that's what i'm watching for for risk at this point >> barry, thank you. always great talking to you, and appreciate the snow your way we've got some of that, a little taste of that here, but i know you guys are expecting more. >> it's great here the only shoveling that you worry about is your roof, and you definitely don't want to do that on your own >> yeah. we hear you. don't want it collapsing either. anyway, enjoy the snow, we'll see you soon. >> all right, thanks, becky. >> and barry tweeted, we were going to ask him about the snow conditions do you get a newspaper out there, barry you want to ask us we got a 40 inch base in 24 hours. coming up, you want to read this for me, becky, you want to try this again reese's coming up mr. peanut may

soon have a new home details of the reported deal, talks for the planters brand next it's not quite as cool as a peanut butter company buying a jelly company, but kind of cool. it nmakes sense. as we head to break, a look at the premarket gainers in the s&p 500. for skin that never holds you back don't settle for silver #1 for diabetic dry skin* #1 for psoriasis symptom relief* and #1 for eczema symptom relief* gold bond champion your skin

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when we come back, everything you need to know about amazon's incoming ceo and how the executive transition could change or not change the company. we're going to talk all about it as we head to a break. take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. 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.

jeff bezos stepping aside as we have been reporting as amazon ceo. he's one of the original disrupters that's an understatement revolutionizing the way people do everything. and so much more joining us to talk about how bezos changed businesses, jeff sonnenfeld, yale school of management, associate dean for leadership studies jeff, i guess other than just the headlines, he's been, you know, not out of the job of ceo, but maybe stepping back a little in recent years, so maybe this isn't that big a shift, but what's behind it, do you think, anything other than just wanting to smell the roses >> well, i think you're right, that he definitely has a whole portfolio of other interests, from space exploration, and

space travel, of course, to his various foundations on day one foundation for needy families and kids in distress, and his interest in the "washington post," of course is earth foundation on climate change, so he's got a big portfolio of other interests but he's not going anywhere, as becky mentioned earlier, he'll be around, and it's a model we have seen before, but it's a little bit near the world of technology, and how these ambassadoral successions larry ellison did it, and bill gates at microsoft i think the guys at intel in the good old days of intel, andy grove and bob noyce, they worked it out well there to have the executive chairmanship, so you have some ongoing relationship you don't undermine your successor. >> should we make anything of the aws sort of that component

being, like, i'm sure that this gentleman is well versed in the other parts of the business, but that's kind of notable, isn't it, it wasn't from the other side of the business that the successor was picked >> it's a huge topic in itself do we have an hour you might wonder i don't think that there's any strategic regulatory scheming there, but it is interesting, people who might have thought this was an easily divisible business, separating the consumer business from aws, and now you have this titan from aws coming in that really understands the integration of the full enterprise. it seems like they would be less enthusiastic under this leadership to have a divestiture. but aws, it's just an incredible story in itself. there's another angle. i don't think there's any flight risk there as we know, with the separation of the exit of jeff wilke, the

exact same age, 53, as you guys mentioned just before his departure announced in august that these are incredibly talented people. i remember, you know, when we had bezos back on the show back in 1999, just the time that some of these other guys were joining on with the company, wilke had just joined then, and jassy had been on for two years. we were skeptical about this business beyond books, music, and video, but bezos saw it come people like some of us, skeptical on the investment side or business building side, there was afroften a deceptively comi side to jeff bezos, which didn't reveal his serious strategic side, what he had in mind, and they were critical about the cull culture, a tough place to work take a look at the continuity of leadership there this is a much more pleasant

bonding place to work in a culture than sometimes some of the media have this talent in there, so they can promote within and from aws, what is it, 10% of their revenues, but 55, 060% of their operating processes, an incredible success story i don't think jassy was a flight risk it sure is nice to cement him in, to have him there. joe, you remember the demise of all of these great technology companies, that used to have us around in boston ed decastro, and ken olsen of digital equipment company, and you go with the anne wang of wang labs, and there's these monarchs, they didn't want to leave. they stay there for decades, and build the place up, and then they would accidentally tear it down again i think they want to avoid this, and that's the kind of thing that we have seen happen in some of these companies but a board has to watch out

because sometimes these ambassadors wind up coming back into office. you know, we've seen that of course with twitter, we've seen it with nike it made good sense, i think, when it happened with michael dell, and yet still, you wonder, when they step back in, howard schultz, ralph lauren, sometimes you wonder if they have created the problem that necessitates their triumphant return to power. i don't think that that's the story here you have somebody who has a whole portfolio of outside interests that you mentioned that keep him engaged so i think he won't be one of the returning generals he's not going to be a monarch that only leaves office first. he's definitely going to, i think, succeed in this ambassador model i wrote a book that talks about it at a microsoft event, if we have time for me to tell you something i shouldn't talk about, i had a panel on ceo's

succession, and i had the ceo of wind pro on there aziz prim, and he had just been going through a difficult succession didn't quite happen. his competitors pulled it off at that time a little bit better. warren buffet who had a foot fall on his intended suck suggest -- succession and was candid about it rupert murdoch that didn't want to talk about succession at all, and the last one was jeff bezos. he told me he really admired the succession process of places such as microsoft, and you could see that he was lining something like this up, and when i put him on stage, he went completely silent, like we weren't spoking the same language. i guess he didn't want me to talk about it then or now. this was very very well planned, and a terrific board behind it couldn't have a more experienced board to help guide this.

>> i was wondering whether jassy had a law degree, and then i was thinking, you know what, you would need, it's not a v 8, it's like a 16 cylinder company. it would help to have a degree for the law issues, and ee, electrical engineering or computer science, and this is only, the guy is going to have to delegate obviously because there's so many things, and that's probably more about what it is than recognizing talent in all of these other areas look at all of this company is involved, and then, i guess you need a physical engineer or engineering physics for the space venture as well. you need it all, jeff. do you think this is the guy, jassy? >> the space won't be, i guess on his plate that will be bezos. >> jeff can do that. >> he is a great technologist, though he didn't used to present himself that way in fact, that is his background

from princeton i do think that as i recall, i think jassy, the only detriments there, i think he's a double harvard guy. i think harvard college perhaps, and harvard mda shamelessly, i have that discretion of youth behind me. i don't think he's got that technology background but he's certainly proven himself in building this business he came in soon after graduating it was not an obvious choice to come in in 1999. there were a lot of companies that fell by the wayside, and in fact, this is a company where people wondered if they won't 20 years without making a profit, is this some of the thing people complained about elon musk not to get into the reddit phenomenon, but sometimes a crowd of investors believes in something that isn't quite proven out in the short-term in terms of their financial and market performance this was putting faith as jassy

is did in his career, and a lot of investors did there's going to be something big here even though profits didn't come for quite some time. it was extraordinary loyalty showed but to build this business and stay there is incredible tenacity he's apparently, i don't know, apparently andrew does know, he's quite well liked. >> i think becky does too. >> we've met him over the years. i met him when he was the nerdy jeff bezos yesterday, lex luther was trending on twitter because he went from the nerdy jeff bezos to like the wwe villain jeff bezos, where if he comes after you, i think he could rip you limb to limb all buffed up. wears those vests and stuff. he's had quite a transformation too. >> he has a serious side, and strong social compassion. >> and great laugh that we can't play anymore. >> we don't play it anymore because he stopped doing that. >> there he is

there he is. i'll be back okay thank you, jeff. i thought you were going to recite that entire book for a minute there, but thank you. we always love having you on, and we'll see you again soon beck >> thanks, joe when we come back, the futures are in the green this morning. we're going to talk much more about what's moving the markets straight ahead. and later we will continue our conversation about jeff bezoderts paure with insider inc. ceo jeff blodgett "squawk box" will be right back.

coming up, is regulation on the way for robinhood, that's the question, and how have the last ten days impacted the chances for an ipo we're going to dig into those questions and so much more when we return in just a moment on "squawk box" ♪

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this is bob minetti and his wife wendy. in 2016, he was diagnosed with topancreatic cancer.y bob participated in a clinical trial that included cutting-edge radiation therapy and surgery. he's been in remission since completion. i am so glad i learned what was possible for me stand up to cancer and lustgarten foundation are working together to make every person diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a long-term survivor. visit pancreatic cancer collective.org. this is bob minetti and his wife wendy. in 2016, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. bob participated in a clinical trial that included cutting-edge radiation therapy and surgery. he's been in remission since completion. i am so glad i learned what was possible for me stand up to cancer and lustgarten foundation are working together to make every person diagnosed

with pancreatic cancer a long-term survivor. visit pancreatic cancer collective.org. welcome back to "squawk box. this morning, the tug-of-war between retail investors and wall street's power players is prompting conversations in the quality of the financial system. i wrote about in this week's deal book exploring a couple options that people are talking to potentially level the playing field. to discuss the world of regulators inial of this and what we may see given the news that we just heard that treasury secretary janet yellen is actually convening a group of regulators to discuss what's happened here. amy lynch founder of frontline compliance amy, good morning to you as we just mentioned janet yellen putting together a panel, if you will, of the regulators

to take a look at what's happened here. i'm curious, if you were on that panel, what you would be saying? >> first of all, good morning, andrew and thank you for having me on your show this morning and if i were on that panel as a regulator, we would be discussing what roles the s.e.c. should play, what role finra should play. and the various market participants in reviewing and analyzing what happened. so, the s.e.c. is the primary regulator of the markets in general and of the various exchanges. and then you have finra which is the primary regulator of the actual >> right >> broker/dealers and individuals. >> amy, there's so many different issues here, though, to untangle and to unpack. so i'm just go to be go through them first from the s.e.c. perspective, you look at what's being said on reddit some people say that there's market manipulation going on in that respect and that somehow they should go

after those redditers, there are others who say it's prespeech in what they've said. obviously watching the stock come down, there's big questions about investor protection. but what's so unique about the moment, at least some of the investors say we don't want you to be protecting us. it's condescending to do that. what is that with that regard? >> it's a tough one, as you said, if these are everyday people just trading in their accounts, the regulators may not be able to doll much about that because they don't regulate everyday investors trading in their own account. what they can regulate is the professional market participants so, they will look at that activity they can only look at what they have jurisdiction over so, they'll look at the exchanges. they'll look at the brokagebroks

and the hedge fund if they're short. and if they find that there were any licensed professionals doing the long squeeze, trying to squeeze out the shorts they could potentially prosecute them >> you think more likely they prosecute the big guys, than the little guys, if you will, in this whole thing let me address another issue payment for order flow big controversy. lots of people talking about the idea that really underneath the robinhood model is this idea that effectively citadel and other firms that are executing some of these trades for them. effectively paying for the order flow and some people say that makes the customer of robinhood not really the customer, it makes citadel the customer do you have any problem with that do you not have a problem with that because the flip side, as you know, if you were to end that, it would end the likes of the robinhoods and to the extent you believe

the robinhoods democratized or made it easier for more people to get into the market it might make it tougher. where do you end >> so that is a factor going on for a long time. we're just now hearing about it because it's robinhood and everyone is talking about robinhood, but they're not the on one that's been doing this. and it is legal. this is a completely perfectly legal way of doing business, increasing revenues at brokerages, and they all do it to flat line that regulation around that part of the industry, i don't know there's much of an appetite for that but it would be, perhaps, to control some of this activity. >> but the question is control this activity in what respect? by the way, there are firms that don't do this, fidelity doesn't do this. jpmorgan doesn't do this i think they actually offer free trades and don't do this so there are firms that don't do it but they're able to make money in other ways, right

>> that's exactly right. so, robinhood and platforms like it are 100% simple, online trading platforms. so their various sources of revenue are limited. whereas, if you're looking at one of the other online broker/dealer platforms that have multiple lines, investor advisory businesses associated, et cetera, many different ways to make revenue and increase revenues, they don't need to depend upon the payment for order flow like a robinhood does so robinhood gets -- >> amy -- >> -- gets large -- yes. >> i apologize, we got to jump one question, are we going to see people in handcuffs when this is all over, gimpven all of the allegations of fraud from all different sides? >> i believe we're going to, yes. i suspect we will see some regulatory action in some form it will be interesting to see what happens

>> okay. amy, we'd love to have you back, continue this conversation we appreciate it very much thanks >> great thank you very much. good morning >> thank you joe. two tech giants posting strong quarterly numbers we'll talk about the faang results and the ceo shake-up at google someone told me a new acronym yesterday it was faang and for the gamestop was the "g," the "m," i don't know. " kia was the "n." "awas american i don't know, maybe the bank stocks we're going to to talk about amazon

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visit paycom.com, and schedule your demo today. new boss at amazon jeff bezos stepping down from the giant tech giant's ceo, and the third quarter. we'll take a closer look at his replacement andy jassy and what means for shareholders. that's straight ahead. democrats kicking off the process to pass the president's $1.9 trillion relief plan also rejects republicans' $600 million proposal we'll get the latest from washington there are things better

together, peanut butter and jelly, beer and football this year, budweiser is doing something different for the game we'll find out what that is as the second hour of "squawk box" begins now ♪ drink beer ice cold genuine ♪ welcome back to "squawk box" right here andy ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen let's show you where equity futures stand at this hour 2 1/2 hours before the market opens. dow up higher, 38 points s&p up 14 points, nasdaq, 104 points higher. we've got a number of headlines to tell you about at this hour the biggie is this treasury secretary janet yellen is planning a meeting to discuss what else, the controversy surrounding trading in gamestop

and other stocks that meeting is expected to involve the treasury, the s.e.c., the fed and the cftc we should mention those stocks were all down in premarket trading earlier this morning some have risen off their lows let's show you where they stand. gamestop at 8$88.80 obviously off their highs of $400 sony has raised the four-year outlook for the booming demand for the console sony is having trouble keeping up with the demand because of a worldwide shortage of computer chips. and kraft heinz in talks to sell its planter's brand to skippy peanut butter maker hormel the price tag is $3 billion. that deal can be announced soon next week. you can see the synergy already. >> people thought that coors who

buy -- you know, beer and -- andrew, blackberry or bed, bath and beyond amc, ea, american airlines -- >> bed, bath and beyond, you know that, joe >> the bang stocks some of the faang stocks, huh? >> that's the phrase >> would that -- >> that's the moniker. we don't have to say reddit. explain it the bang stocks. >> i just heard that one the first time yesterday bang stocks. >> did you say that? you already had this >> i didn't say this, no, i heard it yesterday >> he heard it yesterday >> i heard it yesterday on our channel. >> it works. i'm adopting it. i thought i made that up that happens a lot with me, i see something and then i -- you'll see, as you guys get a little older, you think you come up with all of this stuff. and how about -- there it is the

bank stocks, how about the top of the seven we never know what music is coming >> i like that, save water, drink beer let's get to elan who is waiting. she's got important stuff. president biden urging senate democrats to go big -- she's smiling -- on a new covid relief package breaks down who will benefit from the $2 trillion deal thanks for waiting, we've got three hours. we've got three hours but somehow we never have enough time >> joe, the bottom line in the support is almost everybody would get money from uncle sam under president biden's plan but that could be problematic. the nonpartisan budget model took a look at the direct relief the $1400 stimulus check and

expansion of the child tax credit and earned income credit. the lowest income households would get a major boost under this plan. 100% of them are expected to qualify for benefits and the average amount would be $2,505 that's more than a 50% increase in after-tax income. but high-income households would actually see a bigger benefit in model terms. and a top families, 95 to 99% would still get $4,625 that represents a 5% increase in income this is one of the reasons why the analysis finds that the majority of that $1300 stimulus check, about 73% of that amount would go into savings than boosting the economy this analysis appears to bolster the argument from republicans that president biden's proposal

is overly broad and not really targeted to those who need help the most guys >> okay, ylan, enormously popular, these stimulus checks that follows thank you. we appreciate that report. we'll check back to you, i hope. becky. >> thanks, joe let's go to the other big story of the morning, amazon and jeff bezos' decision to step down as ceo and remain on as executive chair. andy jassy who has been running the amazon cloud business is taking over as chief executive in the third quarter of this year j jon fortt has been speaking to jassy. >> they've been talking at the annual aws conference for years. so many interesting thoughts about jassy.

he's been with amazon since 1997 he's not a founder, of course, that's clearly jeff bezos. but he is a founder of aws itself also interesting he is one of the first to work with jeff bezos in this technical assistant role that he really developed into more of a chief of staff-type role when i was talking to him a few years ago, he told me when jeff bezos first approached him about taking that role, jassy turned it down.