last we checked down a little bit after a couple of really rough sessions that will do it for us again, today, and it's good to be back here, because the delay, did you know there was no delay today, which is better. right back at the nasdaq well, what just better. it's harder. >> what did you say? >> no. >> make sure you join us for "squawk on the street" next. good wednesday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla, with jim cramer and david faber stocks will try to extend the best two-day rally since november futures are steady as we watch amazon, alphabet, adp and three times the estimate and we have one eye of course on gamestop, and amc. pretty steady. a road map begins with so many regulators over gamestop the treasury secretary calling ap meeting to discuss, calling a meeting to discuss the recent

retail frenzy. plus, the end of an era. jeff bezos will be stepping down as amazon's ceo in the third quarter. as the company announces its first $100 billion revenue quarter. and of course, we're keeping an eye on all things earnings shares of alphabet are surging this morning strong ad sales. spotify share, they're down, just ahead of the open, with a 24% jump in subscriber, another maim that we will hopefully hit in the next hour ahead >> yes, a lot of interesting calls on spotify in the last few weeks. jim though, i got to unpack amazon to start. a lot of discussion, not just about the slightly acceleration in aws but obviously the transition to jassy and the point has been made this morning that at least in big tech, the play book of founder transitions is thin, but it's getting broader over time. >> i am such a huge fan of jassy. he has been very customer centric. when he came on "mad money" not

that long ago, he talked about cutting the price of amazon web services endlessly to stay ahead of the game and when you talk about alphabet, you have to do that and continue to dominate the cloud. and a book retailer to a company that sells other, and a company that has hired 500,000 people, to a company that is the tech leader and the arc of amazon, doesn't in the end lead to jassy? >> yes, listen, amazon has been such a big component of the overall profitability and the numbers from the retail basis, it's relatively small but the profitability is much higher, the margins and a company started internally like so many other things that mr. bezos has overseen in terms of the innovation, in terms of the relentless evert attack, whether it might be, and their

willingness to throw things aside if they don't work, it's something to watch we will keep an eye on the stock this morning so many numbers to talk about, in terms of just the size of thiscompany, we mentioned the 100 and what, really, it was 125 billion in revenue, 1.3 million employees, and jim, they hired 170,000 people in the fourth quarter. 170,000. >> costco, senegal, who took costco, when you hire new people, in is a tremendous cost and don't necessarily pull their own weight initially and wait a second, whether or not, i'm worried about jassy and the cost that these people had, just because of covid and they need to hire, it was staggers and a $100 billion quarter, they made a lot of money and people think this is a nesting trade and once things get back to normal, they're not going to do as well, that's nonsense. even though the stock is doing well, you have to buy it today

you have to buy it because jassy is the man, it isn't like bezos is just off into the blue yonder i want to urge people to do, and people don't want to do this because it is very sometime consuming, go to the amazon release and read about the future and paragraph after paragraph what they have planned and most companies couldn't do three paragraphs the things they are up to, carl, are the future, and jassy, really, he is the key for a lot of these initiatives so i'm very excited about it when i had jassy on, i've got it tell you, i mean he's a competitor, yes, of course, by the way, without a doubt, i would say one of the toughest people i've ever had on "mad money" and he talked to blue street and i basically stopped during the commercial, hey, listen, i don't understand all the stuff you're saying, it was like so what i love a guy like that put you in your place. we node to put in our places we are just media. >> i saw on twitter, you mentioned his competitive

streak interesting, you know, bezos over the past years has talked about how the quarter, once it's reported, has really been in the works for he says two to three years, and jassy has spoken to us in the past about lessons that he's learned from bezos, himself, here's an example >> i think sometimes leaders get this principle of being a lot wrong, and they think that being right a lot means the idea has to come from you and you dig in on your idea and you have to win the argument and the job for all of us as leaders is to make the right decisions and the best way to make the right decisions, is to get all of the data on the table and hear all of the smart people expressing their opinions and putting together and evolve your opinion, and jeff is really good at that. >> as for the street, jim, jpmorgan goes to 4400. steeple goes to 4,000. street high this morning is now susquehanna at 5200. >> well, look, when you think about this, just think about the

big game on sunday, and there are a lot of people say okay, there can only be one lombardi trophy, this there can only be one winner when i look at what am zhan done d -- amazon did last night, and i don't know how you can make that much money and thank goodness i don't have to go against them and thinking about cloud and the amazing thomas, and i come back and say, i'm so glad i don't have to compete against those guys there is a lot of lombardi trophy winners hanging around here, carl and those who are focused on what happened with gamestop, enjoy. enjoy. that's good pre-game maybe it's half time but it's not the game. no >> amazon, alphabet, apple, facebook, we've talked so much about them, and by the way, the other stories that we've also focused on, that's the game, that part of the game, that's the focus, jim, you're right and as will be what mr. bezos chooses to do or how he chooses to sort of approach this

transition i mean that's going to be a fascinating part of this he will be the executive chairman so he's still going to be in a leadership position. but he has, as we all know, a lot of other areas of interest blue origin certainly in terms of space exploration and then carl, it gets to the larger questions as to will he move in a direction that bill gates, for example, did. in terms of philanthropy in some way, being one of, and for a while, the wealthiest man in the world. he may once again reclaim that title. depending what happens on the tesla stock price but it will be fascinating to watch mr. bezos, you know, from the times when he used to actually join us on "squawk box," 20-some-odd years ago, to his becoming a lot less frequent visitor, let's put it that way, but i've followed him closely, and it's fascinating to watch, as his career and his life sort of advance here and the decisions that he's making outside of amazon. >> if i can just speak for a

second, with this delay, i just want to quickly say that when i talk to all of the companies that are doing ev, they're talking about running on hydrogen, they always say, carl, the reason they have to do this is because amazon insists, i think it's like an issue that may turn out to be clean air carl, his insistence that the supply chain meet much higher standards than the u.s. government is an amazing thing, because he knew that the government could not be a leader so he chose to be a leader and i salute him >> we're going to rely obviously a lot on the private sector for all kinds of initiative, whether that's climate, we'll see, certainly space for now, jim as we pivot to, i'm getting word that we're going to watch gamestop i gis as well this morning -- i guess as well this morning, which by the way, jim, will remain a story as we keep an eye on the tick by tick, what do you think yellen has in mind with this meeting of the s.e.c. and the cftc >> well, i think that the

secretary wants very much to be able to say, i want to know what happened to the regular person here i want to know whether we need to change some of the regulation, and you know, vlad put a piece out yesterday about same day transactions and what it would mean and how much better versus how wall street has done things and a revolutionary pilloried during this period and robinhood has not necessarily come out as being a good actor i think they're tremendous because they brought 17 million people in. but a secretary should do this because we want markets to be free and fair. but i think one of the things she is always going to be have to address, and david, you know, this the notion of caveat emptor, when you buy a stock, it's risky and if she wants to get anything that makes it clearer, when you decide you are going to be in something like a gamestop, that's terrific, everybody has a right to do everything, but please understand the risks, and understand suitability, anything david that she can do that's like that is going to end up helping the regular person and not hurt of course the hedge

funds. >> right and perhaps to move away from this, well, we'll see, the antagonism between sort of these traders and the hedge funds. interesting to know, a lot of people end up losing, it's unclear how many people will really gain when we tell the story. those who were long early obviously in gamestop, and chose to get out, certainly are the beneficiaries, perhaps and have done quite well but there were plenty who got in and are suffering or have suffered significant loss, obviously the hedge fund melvin being the key one. down dramatically. a number of other hedge funds. robinhood a loser here one would argue as well. angering its customer base, having to raise billions of dollars. and a fascinating story. but guys, to return back to earnings, this morning, and move from amazon, to alphabet, i think it's worth mentioning because shares of alphabet are going to be up, seeing it right now, significantly, and jim, you know, looking at a note here from our friends over at moffett nathanson who you follow closely

as well, you can see, $132 rise in that stock, almost 7%, pre-market right now, and they're just talking about how the fact that google keeps or alphabet keeps giving us more and more information, on different areas of its business, which at least it their opinion at moffett nathanson is shining a closer lie on the fact that the core business is actually growing more quickly than might have been anticipated. operating profits up 11% in the covid-19 pandemic, impacting 2020, after mid teens growth in '19. and even with no assigned value for other bets of google cloud, if you back out around 155 billion of expected cash, you get 25% growth in services, operating income this year, it's trading at 23 times. hence, they say, the stock is cheap. >> i immediately send michael nathanson an email saying can you believe the transition, fantastic work, cfo, and there was a time, david, this might be dizzying, all we used to talk about is declining espn, and how

much it cost and how much they made on a click, and this was about youtube, youtube dominance and finally realizing they have something bigger than broadcast, what's taking so long and what thomas has done with cloud, it's interesting, they're not making any money in the cloud they're committed to the cloud i think they saw what azure did and they saw what and jiy jassy with amazon web services, so that story, the story of youtube, and the story of google cloud, thomas curry, david, that was the narrative they chose, i'm forgetting about how much money they make per click and i'm thinking about they will make in google cloud. >> which will be interesting, and it certainly is worthy of your attention but you know, jim, i can't help coming back to my focus which has always been on media, and digital advertising has incredible momentum. we saw the facebook numbers, and we've now seen alphabet's numbers, and you do have to wonder, back to the gamestop

scenario, shares of vye come, shares of some of the more traditional sellers of advertising, have been up dramatically, but the momentum clearly seechls seems to be on the digital side of this business. >> we had an huizer bush this morning, and they of course have commercials in the super bowl and the next thing i think will happen, is the next thing the ad prices will go down because you can reach the right people, the people who want to watch, when it comes to google they can watch it all the time they want, because youtube is there forever. the billion, the numbers of users of youtube are staggering. it's a passing of the guard. rates are coming down from traditional advertising. and it's really going to be youtube that takes them down >> yeah. certainly paid off biggest revenue growth for google in almost three years which is amazing in and of itself we'll take a break here. plenty to get to on stimulus talk, some of these reassuring covid trends mct,oh upgrades of our parent

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talking about david versus goliath. we have on one side wall street bet, retail investors, individuals, i don't know their exact trade sizes but i would imagine it's in the thousands, the low thousand, and on the other side, you have massive hedge funds and institutions, whose bet size is more in the millions or tens or even

hundreds of millions and of course on one side you have reddit, and on the other hand you have main street media, and that sounds pretty david and goliath to me. >> that's reddit ceo steve huckman talking to kariya swisher on her sway "new york times" podcast jim, critical of a lot of what you would call legacy media and that would include us. >> david took out goliath with a sling shot but there are no more goliath, i think the goliath is a little let's say sui generis as they would say in law school, there is no next one because there aren't a lot of questions sold mistakenly being shorted and there is not enough shares to go around david, you know that we can easily make this thing into the little guy versus the big guy, regular guy versus hedge fund, it is great, demonization is a terrific story, but the problem is, david, those who are searching for the next gamestop, may find out that there aren't a

lot of gamestops, not a lot of companies willing to keep quiet to not tell you what their game plan is and a not a lot of companies going up 10, 20 times and obviously we can't say there is more and the people from reddit saying we are keeping them down. but i'm looking at the next gme and it's harder to find than you think. >> it is and it may be more of a unique situation but that doesn't mean there will be speculative excess in other parts of the market. >> right. >> and that traders who are looking for opportunity are not going to also focus on ev names on spacs we know that we've seen it. we've seen the combination of the two. which generates a good deal of enthusiasm to put it mildly it's interesting, from my perspective, because as you well know, all of these spac sponsors want to come on, every day, they want to be on tv here, because they want to reach so same people who are fighting with the hedge funds, and yet

they rely on them, in part, to send their spacs higher. you know, it's a funny grouping there, i guess, on one hand, they're fighting, on the other, they're relying on that same cohort, jim, to help them send their spacs higher when they announce deals and today is another day when we got a bunch of them to tell people about, whether it is dragoneer and later on today betsy cohen as well, and a new deal, there's so many, and that will continue also, jim. it's not about shorts, or trying to squeeze the shorts, but it is certainly about something that is exciting retail traders. >> david, you talk about there are promoters and there are operators, and when you first hear about the spac, it tends to be what do i think about that person and they try to graph date to business and then you say what do you think about that business, and people have to recognize is spacs don't have the same rules as regular offerings. they can make projections.

the row je the, projections, every spac, 2030 is going to be the greatest year ever. 2030 wow. is that the time frame carl >> we'll see what we're all doing here in nine years, jim. as for robinhood, we are seeing now the list of would-be super bowl sponsors, basically commercial owners, and to include a list like door dash and robinhood as well, and they try to reach an audience that is as broad as you can possibly get and i think we have a small piece of sound maybe >> if you're an investor, we make investments morning, noon, and wait, what time is it exactly? short term investments long term investments. >> all right, jim, so that's a $5 million piece of advertising, where inventory is basically sold out >> well, look, i think that

they're playing a little bit on defense, obviously it got quite personal, very difficult "new york times" article yesterday, i think that is one, and what is at stake here is there are so many people who want to own individual stock, young people want to own, regardless of revolution, and i regard it as o these people, the better i welcome them we all have to welcome them, because we cannot forget that there are individuals who don't want to be in index funds, they want to pick stock, they love certain stocks, and carl, why not, it's a return in days, when individuals realize, they can make fortunes by buying the right stocks please not on margin they should have gone about margin in that ad saying listen, don't borrow money just own that's my view, carl that's where i come out. >> we're going to hear a lot more from them, not just on super bowl sunday, but house financial services on the 18th of this month as well. we'll take a break here. plenty to get to we'll talk some cannabis stocks

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take a look at some of the st. petersb -- s&p gamers in the premarket. bernsteen goes to 2500 today more "squawk on the street" in a moment

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we'll get to that opening bell, as you can see, less than three minutes away abbey is a name, i haven't heard you talk about in a little bit. >> i haven't people don't recognize it, the largest selling drug of all time is a company, is a drug called

humira which is an im immuno logical enterprise and coming off patent and in europe there are bio-similar, and what is so exciting for people who own abbvie, a spinoff of abbott, they have countered humira going off patent and the numbers are much bigger than thought and this is a transition company that has been viewed as kind of an also-ran, why did they have to go buy the buyotox franchise and people don't just go to a doctor right now because of covid but they're bringing these numbers up, the numbers are staggering, the neeyield is terrific and people are going to say you know what, maybe this is the one i should own when we calm down with pfizer and when we decide that there is a post-pandemic period richard gonzalez, not a self promoter, ceo, doing a remarkable job, this is a very

inexpensive stock. this has eight times earnings. >> eight times really and obviously a large company. a little less than a $200 billion market value but quite significant. and you see it as a real competitor in these other areas, with these newer drugs you're talking about. >> right people don't want to focus on this, because people are so worried about the profit going down precipitously we know what happens when things go off patent and if they have replacements and replacement drugs are a billion a head, we have to believe the franchise is not a question, due get a 5% yield because you think people are confident with a drug company, you get it because people are worried i think that this quarter may have taken that worry off the table, it's a very important quarter, and that's why the stock is reacting so positively. >> got it. as we take a look there, at what we expect at least when we get to the open. carl, 30 seconds or now so from

now, a very strong day yesterday and we will see how they take those strong earnings from amazon and alphabet, and we don't want to forget about the bond market, guys, we can talk a little bit about that. apple bond deal. wow. it's almost like the u.s. government issuing [ opening bell ]. >> yes, you have apple with a deal we have a three for one stock split at sherwin williams. a lot going on in the capital markets obviously. there's the opening bell and a look at the s&p at the bottom of the screen jim, just to stick on health care and i know faber will do gw and you have been talking about gw all morning but the azn number, the oxford vaccine, pretty encouraging yesterday, 76% greater, 82 with the second dose at a time when the white house is not only increasing direct supply to the states but direct to pharmacies like cvs in 11 states. >> it's happening. it's happening, carl the reopening trade, and we will talk about a vaccine glut, that is something i thought could

happen and i had the unbelievable person on from u.p.s. last night and talked about the difficulties of getting, of getting in 20 hours, these vaccines, from the manufacturing site, she's a part of it, not all of it, to say a cvs, and it's rather, i mean if i were president biden i would go in a u.p.s. truck and show you how hard it is to get. there miraculous efforts by the way astrazeneca is good and we don't talk about the russians, that is very, very compelling, and i've got it tell you, david, when we talk about the russians, we tend to think they're slip shod and an excellent piece in the new yorker saying the opposite, we got to get it in people's arms, we've had very good luck, they may turn out to be a far more important worldwide ender of the pandemic than anything we have in this country, david. >> that's very interesting science has always had a very important place in russia, we know that, right in terms of their, well, whether you start with the work on the atomic bomb after we were the first there, on to the space

race and everything else, jim, we know that and they have had a lot of scientists though leave the country. speaking of science, i did want to get to you on gw, carl mentioned it, let's take a look, they're not going to let us stop looking at gamestop, are they, guys the control room will keep putting it up there. >> the control room is in charge. >> they're in charge >> you want to talk jazz pharma? you got to talk gamestop. >> there it is we kid we kid you can see though, it's huge premium. jim, for a company you've talked a lot about, you had them as a guest on "mad money," let me go through a couple of quick things in speaking to the people who put the deal together, a lot of leverage at jazz pharma, this is not an insignificant acquisition for this company, given what is its size, and most of it in cash, and net out cash at gw pharma, a little bit of a lower number but not much. 5.5 times leverage at close but they say they will reduce that

very quickly given the cash flow characteristics of the combined company. sleep disorders, oncology, obviously they already have at gw, that drug, to treat patients in one year or older for the treatment of seizures, and jim, i want your take on whether it makes sense to you, given it is a very aggressive move for jazz farmee, which does say it's going to be massively accretive, those are my word, not theirs, to a certain extent, but accretive day one. >> well, i've always appreciated justin, the ceo, on "mad money" many, many times and what he has done at gw pharma, the key word here is dosing right now, if you want to take cannabis the reason why it has not been so successful with doctors is you can't dose it correctly. but with gw pharma, you can dose the cannabis that they make, effectively so yes, right now it is just a remarkable drug for a very small population really parents driving it. about children with epilepsy and the big hope here is neuro science, if you can get cannabis

to replace opiates, this is not something justin talks about, it is offlabel, i want to be very careful, it is my talking about it, not him, but if you can do that, what happens is if you got jazz and cg coming up with i think it's the first anti-pain company that is not addictive, right now remember, cannabis remains, for medicines, class one felony, the only one you can actually get cannabis legally for this is the university of mississippi. this is a remarkable movement. and demonstration that justen never missed the mission which was to help children, but oh, my god, i think that this neuro science leader that's come from jazz is very impressive. i think that justin has fought through many different periods where he had said, you know, what, cannabis is fine, look at scott's miracle grow, we can talk about that, but matters is the ability of doctors to write a prescription for cannabis and the only one you can do is gw pharma. >> can bin noid.

>> and they are getting some credit at this point they've looked at this deal for quite some time is my understanding and talking for a bit and unclear whether there was any sort of option but given the price, jim, it is not as though someone is expected to step in here quite a premium they're willing to pay. >> i talked to justin, he's a dry fella, and our discussions are often about how the heck did he get, how the hell did he get typified with tilray why is he can canopy growth? there are all of these different etfs and here is gw pharma, which is a drug company and it's lumped in with companies that you and i, david, would say, well, wait a second, they need legalization, and he's been, his stock has been keptdown, by th fact that he is part of the etf-ization of cannabis, not cannabinoid, so congratulations to him, to say you know what, i want this company to be a science company, not a pot

company and david, pot companies haven't done all that well as we know. >> no. and to jim's point, it is not a pot company. we may lump it in but it is as he says about drug development and will soon be when they close the deal, of course, a part of jazz there's a look at gamestop i don't know if you noticed it, it's still up. >> thanks. >> about 10% [ laughter ] >> believe me, i noticed it is a topic of discussion in the booth as well. jim mentions cannabis, more broadly, scott's miracle grow, first round quarter, up 8, and tilray up 8, and on monday, that statement from not just cory booker and ron widen but leader schumer, that they are going to make cannabis reform a priority, in this congress, i mean this is something that the bulls have been waiting for, for a long time, at the federal level >> yes, look, there are a lot of states where there is completely legal so i don't want to talk out of school. i am a gardner when you use scott's miracle grow, your plants look great but there are different grow

generations, similar, there are materials that you need, in order to be able to have successful cannabis, it's a cash crop, for everybody, including the regular person, and i know scott's miracle grow as being a company so that you have a green lawn, but my kids know it as a company that is a chemical company. it's a battle. but when you take it over to being able to grow cannabis, suddenly it becomes a company that is liberating, and david, everyone wants a cash crop, that makes it so you don't have to pay the other guy, and this is a remarkable quarter this has been the quarter you do not buy the stock. you sure, short, i use the word associated with gamestop, you bet against scott's miracle grow and then for, it this is incredible, wait until we see how it does in the garden season if we stay pent up. >> in the spring, things will grow that's my understanding. >> did hedge fund say that or did reddit say that? >> that was chauncey gardner,

the great one, being there and didn't you hear about it, jim, no one is doing single name shorts anymore even when you mention, it it's not going to happen. nobody can actually short a single name because of the concern, and you guys can show gamestop if you want because of the concern as to what happened with gamestop. what happened there? [ laughter ] >> david, did gamestop take advantage of the fact that its stock went up? >> they haven't done - >> they haven't done an after-market offering. they did report numbers. i know unlike, as you pointed out, amc, unlike american airlines, which used those, and by the way, unlike, some of those holders of amc for example, silver lake, you know, they're basically looking at a big loss, on that convert they, did and it's like, wow, they got out. they made money. and another firm i think also was in the debt, and was able, but got a lot of stock as well they made a lot of money, in amc, and then amc was able to at least continue to try to

right-size its balance sheet, but your point's a good one, we haven't seen that offering from gamestop, one would expect even at 100, though down from the highs of 483, they would still be happy to take the money if they can get it, right, jim, right? >> david, not francis, someone from amazon web services, has been named, a newly created title, chief technology officer at gamestop, what i love about gamestop, is they're selective, their sleskt selective notion of releasing information the idea to hide their game plan and not come on and i wonder if janet yellen when she comes on, can we get them on the phone, because i try to get them on the phone all the time and talk to the fantastic ceo, and we know, a slight disclosure, i keep getting hung up on, because it's against the law, but you know, david's all is fair in love and select ive disclosures >> and more between the hedge funds and these traders. carl, i should mention of course, amazon just came up

there. amazon is actually down. despite what was a very strong quarter. >> oh, no. >> planned departure of mr. bezos. as the company's ceo come the third quarter as we pointed out. andy jassy will take over that role as ceo and mr. bezos remains executive chair. but apple down facebook down. alphabet still holding up with some significant gains after that quarter guys, did you see, i mean i mentioned it, apple issued what, 40-year paper, 2.55, i think it was. 2.55%. 95 basis points above the comparable treasury, or at least if you want to figure out what it would be at 40 years. >> david, who's got a better balance sheet, the u.s. government >> a good point. apple. >> but you didn't talk about boeing, david. you didn't talk about the refinanced deal with boeing. >> no. i didn't >> which kept boeing, which probably had the worst quarter of any major company, and they're ready. and i think that if we open up, i have this image, david, you can correct me if i'm wrong, i

think we're going to go places, you know, and maybe take a plane, you know, what do you think? >> i like the idea i like the idea. i'm having a hard time focusing. >> go somewhere? >> soon. is i think -- i think soon soon as in three months, four months. >> sooner than we hear from gamestop, right? gamestop versus flying, gamestop, i want to focus on gamestop, because i love the irrelevance of the 5,000 stores but you know with chewy, we haven't mentioned chewy, we haven't mentioned amc, we haven't mentioned the revolution, we haven't talked about lennon, we haven't talked about spartus, we haven't talked about trotski, i think we rub them all together and have a great class on western criv. >> speaking of communists, did you see alibaba this morning that stock is up in part because of news of a potential reorganization of financial, which of course alibaba owns 33% of as you take a look at shares of chewy.

there's alibaba. rebounding on that news. it has been around, this idea of them becoming a holding company in some way. and obviously undergoing a great deal more regulation, and the chinese carl, are very focused on fin tech and on regulating, sort of the newer offerings coming up from companies and the question is what it is going to mean to the company's overall profitability and its plans to potentially try to reengineer some sort of initial public offering perhaps even within this calendar year. >> yes, we did see that list of chinese entrepreneurial leaders, in some state media yesterday, on which ma was left off the read-in was that perhaps it was a signal or a sign of his declining influence but it is very hardto tell, david, as we know, not a lot of transparency about the relationship at least between ma and the government there. jim, while we got a moment, i do want to get you on two names one is spotify david mentioned subs up 24 number of podcasts has tripled from a year ago.

from 700 k to 2.2 million. it was citi that went to a sell on january 15th. being skeptical about the podcast strategy is that playing out? >> look, spotify has had a history of not reacting well to the quarter, and then reacting well after, when people realize how much of their business is really artificial intelligence, figuring out what your brain wants, kind of amazon, when it comes to music but i think the podcast, the podcast movement is brilliant and what we'll do, we come back and say that is a nice decline to get into spotify. i like it. congratulations to dave. when he found jack ma, the stock bottomed no one else knew where he was. and congratulations to david it was like a walmart situation. fantastic work and carl, our team is amazing. we found ma. we - >> he was in his house >> is that what it was >> he was living where he lives. >> you're good, man. >> it was tough. it was tough to find him. >> wow. >> carl, i don't think people realize that, i don't even think

that joe, the late joe, could have found jack ma to my partner, david faber, go ahead. >> david faber, p.i. >> nasdaq is trading above the january 25 record close shy of an intra-day high. let's get to bob pisani. hey, bob. >> hello, carl three to two advancing to decline stocks and near and dear to the s&p 500 and hard to believe but 3855, that was the old closing high, january 25th, 20 points away from an network historic high in the s&p after the big dip around gamestop and robinhood and all of those issues. sectors-wise, an even balance here china continues to be the outstanding performer on the the year, mchi is up 13, 14% energies, okay, and banks are doing okay tech is on the flattish side you know, alphabet's got a new high but maybe caps are mostly down and consumer staples has been lagging the entire year. not a single up day i don't

think. the shorts surprisingly modest trading range today. i think we're 15% up on gamestop today. but those are not big moves compared to what we've been seeing recently. i'll tell you what is a big move secretary yellen calling a meeting of the regulators, i'd pay very close attention to this if i was robinhood and everything else. the thing to look out for is the finra, financial regulatory authority, and regulate the broker/dealer, they put out a statement the other day, specifically saying 2021, we're going to look at the game-fy cation of trading and this focus includes risks associated with at-based platforms with interactive or game-like futures, that are intended to influence customers, their related forms of marking, and the appropriateness of the activity that theyare amoving clients to undertake through these platforms. the word here is appropriateness. this is where they get you because they're probably going to push some arguments that. so things that are going on are not appropriate for the customers who are using it

very, very difficult situation for robinhood and other broker/dealers in generals the gamestop thing is a less of a concern for the markets overall. there is a little bit less systemic risk concerns on. that back to the stimulus. go big on remconciliation a big reason the market is moving and the vaccine rollout. and earnings, halfway through earnings season and if you look at the numbers it looks like the third quarter. analysts were too conserve tiv again. almost 20% beats that we're seeing, 20% above what the estimates are, and way too con conservative, guys and that's the best thing that is happening in the markets right now and jim mentioned miracle grow but the company's comment is precious, we are working closely with our retail partners as they prepare for the upcoming growing season stock is up 100% in the past year whatever growing season you're going for, scott's has got a part of it, apparently

back to you. >> thanks, bob pisani. as bob is speaking, we have market services pmi up, comes out at 58.3, compared to a consensus of 57.1. ism services out at the top of the hour and by the way, as we said earlier adp was a nice surprise, 174 k. three times the 50 k estimate. we'll be right back.

welcome back as you well know, of course, we've talked a lot about it during the course of last year, corporeal responsibility has shifted dramatically over let's call it 12 months. of course, we've had the impacts of covid, social and political unrest and we have had a lot of ceos willing to talk about things you never would have heard them talk about in the past. i recently sat down with the ceos of delta and hp and cisco, just talking about the changing role of the ceo and whether it's here to stay

>> i don't think that any of us have the option to be quiet anymore. we just, we're being asked by so many of our constituents to, you know, have positions on these things so it has changed, significantly. >> i don't think there is any going back i think what we have been through has changed all of us in various ays and, you know, we've always prided ourselves on being very invisible with our people and accessible. but we'll be talking about different themes that have not been talked about as much. >> i think people realize our companies are a permanent road in valuing our country, our society in the right direction and i think we have to continue to play that role. >> again, you know this of course, you've had so many of these conversations as well, it really is -- if you went back five years and told ceos the things they would be fake taking positions on, the question, of

course, is will it continue, the question seems to be absolutely. >> yeah, i mean, a lot of this, the genesis, let's give them credit, mark benioff at salesforce, business is the greatest force of change all three of those gentleman are amazing. i know enrique very well chuck is so committed to social justice. i say if you interview chuck, in the old days, you would be talking about, how do the special providers, how is he doing? if you don't ask by question three what conduct is doing, you don't know chuck and what our viewers want, particularly the 700 million robinhoods, he's is good guy, the answer is yes. >> that's good stuff we look forward to seeing that that's fantastic content, right on point as to where corporate america is right now we'll take a break right howe

here the dow is lagging, taking us back to mid-january. back in a moment.

gamestop announcing some highers today including an aws executive to run technology for them down 72% over the last two days. right now, hanging on to a 1% gain we are back in just a moment

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all right, it has a g in it. last night, chipotle, was this a quarter miss nibbling a couple times. what you need to know is if you will open, their stores will open right now, they're doing incredibly well just in digital. this is one you let it come in, then you buy it, paul, because they're going to have an unbelievable second half of the year a very good super bowl ad what a burrito means. you and i know means a fatter waistline and really delicious and fresh if it's chipotle. >> january coms up 11. i know it's an important story to watch how about tonight? >> thank you

okay we have skyward solutions, that's 5g. a great guy, hologic in world testing and consecutive. then let's have some fun let's have elf this is a company reinventing the cosmetic industry. you know what, in a period where it's all rich versus poor and big versus not big how about something that makes people look better in an era, charm, where we are zooming and i cannot believe i had this thing. i got this thing when i was 13 there is nothing we can do i have heather gains here. i need help. we'll watch it tonight >> you're long-standing thesis on makeup and social and just being watched on camera has definitely played out. jim, we'll see you tonight "mad money", 6:00 p.m. eastern time with jim cramer we'll see you. good morning, everybody, i'm carl

carl cantonia. we have the nasdaq on the heels of amazon and alphabet we will watch stimulus the ecodata is fairly positive any minute now we begin with the treasury secretary, summoning regulators for a day of friendy and jeff bezos stepping down what's the big c-suite jakeup in the fu-- shakeup in amazon a $7 billion deal. kind of in that family from that cannabiz names as well in the meantime, we will continue to watch gme. as we mentioned, down 70-plus% over the last couple days. essentially flat given that perspective this morning the treasury secretary is calling for a meeting of top financial regulators to discuss

the volitive our next guest believes the culprit to be the market's antiquated infrastructure. joining us is the chair and alliance founding director sheila bear. obviously, a long-time friend of the show welcome back nice to see you. >> nice to see you thanks for having me. >> when you say about talk about antiquated, is it long or bigger >> i think that's a part of the solution we hire margin requirements, we need restrictions, the ability to keep reposting, borrowing, reposting collateral in these chains that can be very hard to untangle i think, you know, easy monetary policy has inflated stock asset values it's also made it cheap to buy a margin so smaller and smaller amounts of money are chasing these inflated stock prices and moving prices and creating the

volatility so i think that is the core part of the problem but assuming volatility there, you have this two-day settlement process, which leads, the clearinghouse significantly exposed when the stock is so volatile yes, i think the technology is there to do this in real time. i think we need to go to that. that would take a lot of instability out of the system. it would help the smaller brokerages like robinhood to survive. they're making a margin call, legitimately so. they're having to go to big financial institutions or others to borrow. so if you want to democratize this stock-trading process, yeah, i think i would put two-plus-two high on my list of things to eliminate. >> they did say no reason why the greatest financial system has ever seen can't settle trades in real time. practically speaking, how long would that take to change?

>> well, this has been around forever. it's really the ftc is in the driver's seat. gary genzler knows a lot about lever technology which could be one of the ways to accomplish this really, if the ftc wants to accelerate it, i think they k. there are a lot of people in the system that two-day float benefits some people they will have to give that up if you disintermediate the clearing houses, that will cause some disruption potentially as well if it's not handled right so there are institutional forces working against this. i think now is the time for the s&p to step up and take it on. >> when you do talk about that technology, i was talking about something like block king. >> i want to say distributed ledger and so watch king has kind of the same thing it has this pejorative it has the new technology to do this real time to transfer the stock, transfer the money at the same time directly between buyer

and the seller i mean, that's the whole idea and full disclosure, i am on the board of the company, one of the many companies trying to develop a use case in this area, but i this i the technology is here and i hope the sec, whoever does it or the fed can do it, if we had a cbt, central bank currency, you can digitize the cash part of the transaction and digitize the stock and again eliminate the intermediary and this two-day lag that would be a very, very dramatic change. one i think we need to seriously start thinking about. >> i wonder if you think it's time to take a closer look at volatility and specifically that corner of the market that is volatility trading because we were talking about market makers. that's the other piece of this story we saw last week, the fact that it got destroyed on volitive it's not the first time we saw something played out when volatility is concerned. we seen other examples in other parts of the markets over the

last couple of years if we were to look at that and see regulators have an increased scrutiny, how would that play out, if it would >> i think increasing margin requirements, it hasn't been re-visited since 1974, which sets the initial marketing requirements, rapid transactions, rehighpot indication mentioned earlier, that's a part of it. that's one of the reasons you can have a short entrance on gamestop 140% of the actual numbers of shares outstanding. maybe once allowing this chain to occur is really beyond me so we need to get leverage out of this system the growth and margin trading. the growth and derivatives trading by retail and institutional traders means there are smaller and smaller amounts of money that creates the volatility. raising those margin requirements i think would slow it down a bit. having a transaction tax, too, would slow it down a bit

at least on the high frequency side so those are other structural reforms that i think would be warranted. again, they will cost people money. margin works, leverage on the way up it doesn't work so well on the downside it increases volatility and these market, these instance to market and it also, you know, it would be nice to try to move our equity markets back to what they should be doing, which is long-term creation value, raising capital for companies that are contributing to the economy and they've become incracyingly this speculative game and wall street's done so well, again, monetary policy has driven this, they've done so well in the pandemic than they did in the great recession, the regular guy, the little guy is seeing this and saying, well, why not me too i think that's impassioned behind robinhood and i get that, i think the answer really is to try to slow this down for everybody and we could receive

markets back to where it should be, which is raising capital for real value creation in our economy. >> right right. finally we have already talked about leverage but when you look at all the reasons why retail has boomed, home equity, low debt service, savings rate, we are looking at more stimulus checks on the way. is it that the gamestop episode is not going to be the last one, at least in the medium term? >> oh, i would guess we are going to see more of it. i absolutely would so it is what it is. you know, again, there is a lot of friction in the system. we have basically a commission free trading now for retail investors, and i think that's a bit unfortunate, too, because what's going on behind that is payment or order flow or internalization, we are actually trading against their customer, so they're getting lower quality execution, but that's not really transparent. so, you know, i think the people

who get involved in the stockmarket, good, look for long-term investment short-term, somebody is paying there was an article today about how the brokers, excuse me, the traders, they have order flow, they're making a lot of money off of that. and that's coming out of the quality of the execution that the robinhood commerce and other you know online brokers to do the same thing it's not just robinhood. so the sec will tackle the new leadership >> yes it's a fascinating turn in the story, sheila. it's good to see you hope to talk to you soon thanks. >> thanks, for verying me. >> sheila bair the other big sthoory, jeff bezos is stepping down you have known mr. jaffe

>> i know it's fair to say i spent hours talking to him over recent years we do sit down at least once a year around aws, andy jassee so some perspective on what this means for amazon, really in jassee you have somebody who i have consistently seen process an organization emphasized and what he talks about and in how he leads and there is this sort of stra into focus the organization and a pressure to innovate around the customer sort of as a proxy for competition. because he would point out, amazon was pushing on him six years before others started paying attention, so what they've tried to build was this internal pressure to get better, even in the absence of external competition. i talked to him about why, for example, they kept lowering prices and reducing margin even

when competition, itself, didn't demand it. here's what he said. >> we're much more focused on the long-term than most companies. we are trying to build a business and a set of customer reason customers get more done in their success on their own, even if it's going for margin percentages, over time, they'll be more successful, we will ultimately be more relevant. >> actually, i don't think that's my interview with him i think that was from jim cramer's, but he has expressed that point of view many times, morgan and it's going to be interesting to see how he continues to translate that ethos, that approach across amazon now >> yeah. so many different businesses and segments within the amazon umbrella i am curious, though, jon, because we did get those alphabet earnings yesterday, whether some of the other players in the cloud space who

are scrambling to catch up, looking to try to take on market share, look act the larger, more notable competitors, gimpbt does have such a lead given that they are nervous, that that is still his baby? >> i think everybody in this space is nervous all the time. i am caught between wondering, are they thinking maybe we get an opportunity here, there is a leadership transition within aws to try to make some moves, or are they thinking, oh, boy, now, jassee can do what he wants to do my gut says there will not be that much of a difference. amazon has and has had every opportunity to have an orderly transition here. in the way amazon and aws is organized, customers have been telling me, it's so clear who i need to talk to for any individual need and even compared to say microsoft which has a number of different leaders, high level executives involved in cloud, amazon is a lot more streamlined in its executive organization, so when

making a transition like this i would be shocked if they were anything but a smooth handoff of responsibility to responsibility >> always interesting to watch, though, that handoff overall as well, jon, in terms of what is bezos going to be doing day-to-day, executive chairman, obviously. he's still going to have a decent amount of control in some way. largest single shareholder one would expect he will be involved in some big decision, even though his attention may be elsewhere. >> yeah, it's executive chairman, not just chairman. and, you know, i'm not even sure bezos and jassee know exactly how this will play out and exactly how much bezos will want to weigh in on big decision as he has been, but they're probably comfortable with this, because jassee is a guy who happen there since '97 he's sort of acted as bezos chief of staff, in 2002, before coming up with aws, itself

so this is two people who really know how to work together under circumstances that are changing. because they have been often the ones to change the circumstances for everyone else. >> yeah, jon, thanks, see you again next hour. gamestop day traders, well, don't forget, they also seem as to like a lot of spacs, we will check in with bank core founder betty cohen. she has been one of the pioneers in spacs and has a new deal today. you won't want to miss this. stay with us

. betsy cohen ask a pioneer in spacs. her company announcing its fifth spac deal with payment platform pioneer, revised it to $3.4 billion, payoneer. and are spacs becoming too speculative. joining us is betsy cohen, found you are of the bank corps, i don't have the time to go through your very impressive resume >> thank you >> but as somebody who started with spacs years ago, you know, i just wonder, first, are you surprised at their prevalence at what really has become a new asset class? >> i'm not surprised and you have to remember that i have been involved with growth companies for many, many years and this is an inflection point.

the spac structure is intended to give investors better knowledge of the forward potential for companies that are growing very quickly and we have many of them coming to maturity just at this time. >> well, let's talk briefly about payoneer and perhaps your other deals. tell me what exactly this company does i am reading the press release it builds a marketplace that connects manufacturers, banks, suppliers, buyers, into and more into an integrated noble platform what does that mean? >> it means it is provided in a way that is really democratization of the commerce. the opportunity for at this time

5 million small business, medium-size business enterprises to have an easy time making their payments and that has not always been the case because remember the process of wiring funds, of writing checks. of sending money through your bank on an international basis has always been very cumbersome. and it -- has created an international platform with which to make this process one that will facilitate and grow the businesses of its customers. >> you know, on the subject of fintech, you know, i wonder, given what we have been covering this last week with gamestop and, in particular, robinhood, which again sort of echoing your words is trying to democratize a

different part of the financial system do you like that business model or is that something you would look a scants at >> it's a different phenomenon than payonneer payonneer is reaching out to customers who otherwise would not having a says through the payment system in robinhood's case, robinhood is providing people who have not had an opportunity to effectively trade stocks to do that but it brings with it a certain amount of i suppose risk both for the customer and for, as we saw this week, from robinhood. >> yeah. on payonneer, you are valuing the company at about 7.6 times this year's expected revenue,

which is $432 million. why did you feel that was an appropriate multiple for your spac as the sponsor of it and your investors to take on? >> it was very difficult to come to the right valuation because payonneer is unique. it's over a 15-year period, built both an excellent tech platform and an on the ground work force to touch the customers. and there is no one providing exactly this combination of services because of that, we had to look to the public peers for segments of the business only and if you look across at build.com and many of the others that touch paypal, just touch a piece of payonneer's business, you will see that the multiples are much

higher >> it's morgan i was going to shift gears little bit back in the fall i got some attention for your spacs, fintech 3 having an all female board at a time when there is increased momentum around esg and seeing potentially more being done around gender and social inequity in the boardroom and c-suites what do you think about it what are your word of wisdom to other executives thinking about this issue and how to address it >> well, i've maintained the all female board and thintech board four and five also have that composition. i think that it's an opportunity for me to provide to people who have not had access, in this case women so we are back to

democratization of the opportunity to learn about spacs, potentially to get engaged in the corporate mna business in a slightly different way. so, i think that i'm providing a real service to people who can then grow and become active and productive members of other boards >> betsy, a couple -- i want to go back again to one of your earlier spacs. not that long ago. you will take pierella weinberg public that seems to be different from the other companies. i don't think of fintech when i think of pierella weinberg what is the reason why you were brought to that deal and believe it will be a good one? >> well, i think that it has many of the same what i call bones of fintech

it is a growth company this was an opportunity for that company, which is also 15-years-old, to have what i would call a generational change and the mna business and related services provide them with the capital with which to not only pay off debt but to grow the company into a variety of verticals is really the same business model even if it's not as quite aztecy. >> and finally, betsy, just give me an overall perspective here are we going to be sitting here years from now talking about the latest spacs, doing the latest deals? is this not a frenzy in your opinion or is this just here to stay >> i would hope that we will be talking about them years from now. but i do think that it really depends upon the growth

companies within the marketplace. if they continue to be important participants and have innovation and automation and creation of opportunity over wide industries, banking insurance are certainly quite large industries healthcare needs a lot of innovation as well on the tech side so i think we'll be talking about growth companies in an era in which growth will be very important. >> betsy, i appreciate your joining us thank you. >> thank you for the opportunity. >> you are welcome, betsy cohen. >> when we come back, we'll talk some amazon, which briefly hit a four-month high this morning, currently down a half a percent. az autcheck in with former

amonbo what the future of that company is. we are back in two minutes

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. oimt courtney reagan here is your covid update at this hour. more than 3500 covid deaths were reported in the united states tuesday. the 19th day this year the count has topped 3,000 they're off their highs, however, and new daily cases do continue to drop. under tight security, world health organization investigators are meeting today to speak with scientists as the team tries to determine how the coronavirus started in the city more than a year ago officials who insist the tokyo games will proceed despite the pandemic are beginning to announce rules for athletes and spectators they require mandatory face masks at all time and a prohibition on singing or chanting during events, and dr. anthony fauci is urging americans to stay home for the super bowl after a repeat in the surge after holiday gatherings >> as much fun as it is to get

together at a big super bowl party. now is not the time to do that watch the game, enjoy it do it with your family or people that are in your household >> dr. fauci declined to predict which team will when on sunday morgan, back over to you i think it's funny he got asked. thank you. as we head to break, let's just get a check on the markets. with stocks now lower, the s&p and nasdaq following the dow into negative territory. the s&p is down .1 of a percent right now. keep in mind, though, this is on the heels of the best two-day rally for those major averages since november the dow is now slightly negative again on the year. we'll be right back. student loans don't have to take over for the rest of your life. with sofi it's possible to get them paid off and start new.

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amazon this morning was talking about andy jassee taking the first role we will be joined by amazon tim grey great to have you. >> good to be with you >> a lot of people getting up to speed on jassee and feel they might know bezos better. what do you tell them? >> jassee ran the cloud computing version and it didn't exist in 2006. now it's worth a $15 million a year business and andy led the charge all the way so, clearly, he's got something to offer >> you've said you've worked in tech for four decades and that aws by a wide margin was the best place, the best managed place that you'd ever worked you have been in places where you have been ceo. >> that's correct. it was a great place to work

i was successful in building a good team arc strong team, that it was a nice place to get up and go into every morning, that is when we were able to still get up and go into work. >> it's been a while we will get back there eventually i will show you what needham wrote about the quarter and the succession we expect the new management structure to be positive for shareholders we think jassee will be less likely than bezos to make hume risky bets but bezos on the board represents a safety net if something goes wrong i wonder if that is directionally correct, the idea that jassee is more rick adverse. >> i disagree with that. i have been with jassee, he says, are you going fast enough? if you go twice that much, what would you do i think andy jassee is a very aggressive guy. >> bezos is stepping away from

that ceo role, it's a high note 125 billion reported, it's a tenuous time for amazon as it has gotten so large and it has such a dominant position in so many different industries at this point in time i wonder what you think what that will mean in terms of the task ahead for jassee navigating some of those regulatory i guess investigation and some of that i guess more broadly some of that scrutiny >> you know, andy's got a promotion. his job includes testifying to congress good luck with that. let's be honest, as recently as ten years ago, the big tech companies were sort of looked up to, their ceos were kind of regarded as heroes and over the last few years, that's changed there is a lot of average, out there with big tech and in general amazon, in particular. jeff built this to a 1.7 billion valuation and has become a part of that story of big tech

becoming less popular. andy is a smart guy. he's a good leader i suspect he'll do well. let's not say it will be an easy job smr next steps for bezos, specifically he has a lot of other initiatives focusing his attention on he has said, though, that the space stuff, blue origin, is the most important work i am doing if you had to break it down knowing him, having worked with him in the past, how much of his time do you think will be dedicated to those things like suppose ever defers? >> if this has taught us anything in the last few years is jeff is an unpredictable guy. so i will not predict how he will allocate his time i do notice, his ex-wife is proving far less effective in giving money away. i think he can up on that front. >> that's interesting. he has started to give things away in terms of the environment, do you think that he will? is there any expectation he will move towards the gates model in

creating an overarching philanthropy >> i would certainly hope so he's a smart guy, very optimistic he made some very progressive remarks and movers on the climate emergency and you know one thing i would like to see jeff throw a certain amount of his leadership skill and a lot of his money at climate change issues he's a guy that might be able to move anew on that. >> he has started to, at least that is where some of his money that he has given away is focused. i wonder about blue origin, what your expectations are there. because he has been trailing, we calm them rivals he has been trailing elon music, not only in the net worth but spacex has had great xechlts do you anticipate that's where he will spend most of his time? >> i'm not going to say. the impact on society, the planet we live in, i just don't think space is that big a deal

so as i said, i'd be happy if he put that energy into the climate emergency. that that's another part of his legacy maybe he can look better in the rear view. >> finally, tim, you nope, the streets sort of pandering a little bit on at heat within big tech, megacap tech, the founder transition we had one at apple. we had one at microsoft. we had one at google it's a small sample size i wonder if you think that whole idea is necessarily fraught or if not, or not, because of the discipline that these founders have obviously demonstrated over the years? >> well, not just disciplined, but vision and aggressiveness, what we were talking about earlier. what everybody worries about is that in another 20 years, these big incredibly powerful companies will be, you know, being chased by pe capital and being run by faceless nbas and

not interesting anymore. so we'd like to see a transition where not only do they bring the people on board but the new people on board bring the kind of you know vision and creativity that we have seen from that sector over the last few decades. >> all right certainly being a 20-year plus vet of the company, that gives jassee some consistency as he makes that turn. tim, it's a fascinating story, of course. the street is hypnotized by it we appreciate your guidance. see you soon, i hope tim bray >> have fun, talk to you later. >> i would argue that plan the philosophy overarching on that space vision jeff bezos laid out over the last couple years we will move on. even before yesterday's announcement, bezos was easing out of his day-to-day role at amazon robert frank has more on what's hay head for the billionaire rosht. >> reporter: morgan, i agree with you space is key to what i call bezo's 2.0 he has a new parter, massive new

homes in l.a. and new york, a new fitness regime, new wardrobe, new social causes, he has been reinvesting himself well before stepping down as ceo. in 2018, he met lauren sanchez, the former helicopter pilot who has since been at his side for almost every high profile trip he's taken to india, wimbledon, st. barts. oscar parties, fashion shows bezos bought david giveen's beverley hills estate for $195 million. he spent 96 million on a collection of apartments in downtown manhattan and he just finished renovating his mansion in washington, d.c that he bought for $40 million the net worth of $197 become bezos says he will spend more time on the bezo's earth fund. he spent 10 billion to fight climate change his day one fund is aiming to

fight homelessness and launch a lot of new schools blue origin you guys talked about and "the washington post", where he is very involved in finding a new executive editor he said yesterday, i've 97 had more energy and this isn't about retiring i'm super passionate about the impact i think these organization can have and, carl, one thing is for certain at 57-years-old, jeff bezos is not done innovating. that's for sure. back to you. >> yes especially at scale, robert. thanks robert frank on bezos there morning. we got a spin-off at daimler, for that, we will turn to phil lebeau >> good morning, shares are moving higher overseas as the board mans to split the company in two so there will be mercedes benz, which is the car busy and mercedes is most notable among the brands there then will you have the truck and bus business so that includes freight liner,

everything else daimler has been profitable over the years. but as a large conglomerate, this is a company that felt it has not grown as quickly as it should nor has the resources it wants as it does the big conversion and investment into electric vehicles so again you got daimler splitting into two, mercedes benz and the truck business guys back to you. >> as we head to break, let's look at pharmaceuticals and jazz pharma it's down a bit. when it originally opened, it looked down, then it rebounded why we focused on it a very large deal which jazz is requiring, roughly about 7.2 billion cash and stock most in cash it will level out jazz pharma. this is a large deal it will be five-and-a-half times lever at least once they do the deal and close the deal they say they will quickly

de-lever as a result of the tesla characteristics of the combined company, oncology, sleep disorders, epilepsy. these are some of the areas in which they will be focused we're back right after this. sofi literally changed my life. when i refinanced with sofi, that allowed me to pay off aggressively and save without breaking my back or breaking the bank. ♪♪

tony dwyer sees opportunities, check ut our in interview on cnbc.com. more "squawk on the street" coming up.

. welcome back it is now time for our ets spotlight. we take a look at our ticker ibb, up more than 20% over the last three months of trading one name in the group to watch, amgen, under pressure after issuing a weaker than expected four-year outlook, saying the pandemic would continue to impact sales amgen paused or halted

enrollment in three trials, cancer drugs it's down about 7% over the past week "squawk on the street" will be right back

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welcome back they are meeting with top financial regulators to discuss names like gamestop. the meeting could take place as early as tomorrow. to we're joined by james cox, professor of law at duke university and a former member of the nyse legal advisory committee professor, thanks for being with us today what do you expect to be discussed? i ask that given the fact this is really a jumble, and there are quite a number of threads that could be tugged on here >> well, one thing that ought to be on the agenda when brown will schedule a confirmation hearing f i don't think there will be a lot going forward that will be notable action until the chairman is in place

and gather the information to figure out what to do about our irrationally exuberant markets that we've been witnessing the last two weeks >> given with a we know and i realize there are regulators taking a look at all of this and i would imagine investigation that is go on for a period of time, from face value looking at the whole situation from all angles, anything that strikes you as dubious from a legal standpoint >> no, it's not clear to me that it's dubious i do want to look at how the clearing agencies have been handling this. robinhood made an announcement they were suspending trading for several stocks, now down to five, i believe, because of concerns about meeting capital requirements in the clearing house process. i don't disbelieve them. i want to think about how well the clearing agencies have held up in a situation like this.

that's something we learned in a different market is the important role that these clearance agencies serve and it's important that they work. we need to gather information there. we have to gather information about the short squeezes that we see. it's unnerving here. i think we depend on short selling to price securities. markets serve a very important task of price discovery. and i think that dynamic is important. i think we need to take a hard look at that and think about whether those assumptions in our markets have been working fairly well have been challenged the last two weeks when you see stocks run up and many losing money, 735%. that's one of the risks they took in being idiots, quite frankly. >> that's what you think they were, idiots >> i think they were idiots. the idea you're going to disregard tools of finance and somehow drive a stock to some

price you think is justified but not based on any sort of insight is just nonsense >> where does it end >> i think that will happen here we have to take a hard look at -- we know we have callers on markets for big banks. we need to think about putting guardrails up around trading and individual stocks. not necessarily the stock moves a lot but the ability of investors to be able to buy options much more than before. if we learned anything from what's happened, we need to re-examine that question whether we want to make leverage available to everybody and whether there should be some limits on that leverage. >> justified or not there's a populist notion and a socioeconomic discussion to be had. i'm curious what you think an s.e.c. under gensler will look

like given the fact the biden administration has said that it's very focused on financial regulatory frame works that include more inclusiveness and more equity? >> i'm not a great believer in that markets need to be necessarily inclusive. it whittles it sophisticated traders. i think that's a romantic notion i will say this. i don't think there's been a point in time we needed a chairman who had the background that gensler brings, 20 years at goldman sachs and trading in derivatives and distinguished service during the financial crisis and our problems right now are micro structure issue with our markets have been there for quite some time and we need to address those issues we didn't do that well enough under the two marys who were chairman or clayton.

we need to deal with the real issues which are micro structure issues that he's adequately set for. >> micro structure meaning what? >> the kind of orders that we have we have six or seven different kinds of orders and some are more justifiable than others others are phishing orders to spoof people we have problems in our clearing rooms. why do we let individuals buy options and then speculate without any necessary capital to be able to stand behind the options perhaps. the customer has to be reined in and then you have a platform that actually encourages this certain mania, quite frankly these are all micro structure issues and we've been ignoring them we sold ourselves a bill of goods that we let everybody come in and trade and stand shoulder to shoulder.

i'm not sure that's good for our markets, quite frankly i would like to have a study i'm skeptical that it's good >> an online brokerage like robinhood, does the business model need to change >> i think so. i think when you look at robinhood's business model it's pandering to the dark force that is are behind speculative trading. lights go off, bells ring, et cetera, when you've gained a buck and encourages to play to the crowd. i don't think that's in the interest of our markets. >> thanks for joining us today >> a pleasure to be here keep your eye on the markets here took a limb bit of a spill got off to a strong start. the nasdaq did rise above a closing high we've lost some of the gains the dow down 67. coming up we'll talk amazon shake-up with one of the order board members and investors when

"squawk alley" starts in about three minutes.

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it is 8:00 a.m. on northeast 28th street in bellevue, washington 11:00 a.m. on wall street. "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ all my life i wish i had a girl like you ♪ good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk alley." i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt. we're watching gme out of the corner of our eye this morning obviously shares are in focus, back in the green slightly, 10%, after the extreme volatility in