good morning it is 8:00 a.m. at apple headquarters in cupertino, california it's 11:00 a.m. on wall street, and "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

happy thursday welcome to "squawk alley." i'm jon fortt with carl quintanilla and julia boorstin this hour the titans of technology search for what comes after the smartphone for apple it might be a car. weight get into the latest on apple's auto exploration at smartphone maker -- smartphone chip maker qualcomm, i should say. overall good news but with asterisks and those are enough to slap the stock down almost 10%. what else is down? wells, gamestop and amc. that trade not doing well today. gamestop down 23%. amc down 14.5% ebay and paypal, meanwhile, are higher after earnings. we will touch on that, too first we have to start with that potential apple car. phil lebeau broke the story for us and joins us now. phil, i've watched apple over the years and they take their time actually coming out with

something. they very seldom, it seems to me, show their blueprint to a partner ahead of time. so could it be that they're talking to kia, perhaps also to others, and they can afford to walk right up to the line of producing something and not release it to the public >> yes very much it's a possibility in fact the multiple sources who we talked with who confirmed that apple is in discussions with hyundai/kia for the production of an apple car at the kia plant in west point, georgia, the people that we've talked with have all said the same thing which is look, they're probably talking with other automakers we have confirmed they have talked with other automakers does that mean any deal that might be struck between apple and hyundai/kia is the only one? that there will be nobody else no, it doesn't mean that you hit on a good point, jon this is not a done deal. in fact, when we reached out to both apple and hyundai they declined to comment. what would the apple car plan,

as we understand it, from talking with multiple sources, here is what it would look like. it is scheduled for production starting in 2024 though the people i've talked with said, look, that could slide back to 2025 if there are delay it is could go back to 2026. apple would control both the hardware and the software. in other words this would be an apple car. this would not be apple software underneath a kia model it would be an autonomous electric vehicle, autonomous being the key part there, and it would have seamless integration with the apple ecosystem you take a look at shares of apple, keep in mind, we reached out to apple, asked them if they have a comment on this report. they said they declined to comment. we reached out to hyundai/kia, same thing they declined to comment on this report real quick a look at the auto stocks and we're showing you because as soon as we did this report i heard from people and they said, wow, this will kill all the automakers they will be dead in the water no, it's not they all know and are preparing for the possibility that apple will eventually become an automaker. so this is not something where

they saw my report and said, oh, lord, what's going on? apple is getting in the auto business they've been in talks with apple. some of these companies have had discussions in some fashion with apple. so this has been expected within the auto industry, guys. >> phil, i find this so fascinating and i have to notice tesla shares are trading down nearly 2% on the news. the other automakers are not trading down i'm curious what you think this means in terms of competition with tesla and whether apple will be going after a different demographic, maybe the fact they're talking so seriously with kia means maybe they're going to have a more accessible price point than tesla how does that battle play out? >> well, to my knowledge from talking with sources they're not at a point where they've said, look, we are going to build a vehicle that will sell for between $20,000 and $40,000. they're not to that point yet. whether or not the product line ultimately is for a lower price point versus tesla remains to be

seen the key thing to watch between a.m., tesla, you name the automaker, the development of technology because that's the differentiating factor everybody i've talked with has said the same thing, if this is just about building a vehicle, no big deal. there are plants all over the country. you can build a plant or build a vehicle, would it be any different? if you're apple the answer is no, so you don't build it. if you can make it an autonomous electric vehicle that is truly autonomous, can control that last mile, then you have a differentiating product. if you can make it seamless so people get the apple experience they have come to love then you have a real differentiating product. >> phil, the main reason i can imagine apple not coming out with a car even after engaging

with kia and other automakers, building prototypes, is tesla. >> sure. >> apple has this tendency to only want to enter a market at this point if it thinks it can make a difference, it can be best and secure the components, the technology that has a road map to secure differentiating over time. with batteries that will take investment and time. >> true. your question makes me think you believe that apple is looking at tesla and saying they already have this market they have a head start i don't think they look at it that way based on the people we've talked with. this is a global market with 90 million vehicles is tesla a leader in electric vehicles right now hands down worldwide they are the leader in electric vehicles. will they be there in five years? they will probably be among the leaders. not sure if they will be the actual leader. when it comes to autonomous, they've made progress with the

autopilot. we've yet to see level four and level five autonomy in a tesla vehicle. that's the key when you get to that level you can truly say to somebody i'm in this car, there's nobody driving, and i'm going from here to there, boom elon musk has said on the conference calls, we have complex driving conditions that our vehicle has no interaction at all with the driver that's great but can you do it on a wide scale in the united states, worldwide, wherever it might be? not with tesla or the other automakers that is what they are drive towards with the apple car >> it truly is a data story in the end, phil, one reason it involves so much of big tech fascinating work again we'll look forward to more our phil lebeau talking about the developments on the apple car front. let's bring in light speed partner mercedes-benz, creator of the newsletter. good morning thanks to see you. >> thanks for having us.

>> mercedes, there's so much brewing, the apple story, what we know, the google/ford partnership now. i wonder where you think we're finally going to get some real visibility as to where the big players get into the market. >> we're certainly talking about a number of years away they're talking about starting production in 2024 this is a continued march of apple getting into all sorts of categories and apple isn't always first when they come to a market but they aim to be the best when they do enter. i think i'm a consumer investor at light speed and i think about what are all the possibilities for consumers now in this vehicle. you use your phone, you go somewhere, you eat, and now apple will be involved in two of the three activities

and in your car maybe you can connect your apple tv, headset, you can have meetings, that new mixed reality headset to have virtual meetings there's a lot of possibilities here >> yeah. as far as autonomy goes on mobility, if apple were to confirm this down the road, that would be a seminal moment, i assume you believe >> absolutely. >> when it comes to hardware nobody does it like apple. at the same time if this car doesn't come out until 2024 or 2026 let's not forget wamo has taxis in the market that will get better in the next three to five years the last time apple entered the market late was the home pod i would never bet against apple. i'm excited to see what this car looks like i'm concerned about the time frame they're working on >> casey, i'm very excited to see what the car looks like,

too. i will shift gears now over to reddit i got numbers that reports reddit's mobile app hit 6.6 million installs in january up 128% from the year earlier a month. this has been such a phenomenon. the power of reddit, the conversation driving trades of gamestop and i'm curious for your perspective, casey, as someone who has watched social media how do you think section 230 reform or a conversation about the responsibilities of these platforms is going to impact what happens going forward with the free exchange of ideas on reddit and other platforms? >> yeah, well, we're sort of waiting for the biden administration to make its first move during the campaign biden said he wanted to repeal section 230. i think since then some cooler heads said we've done a more piecemeal reform but it's very difficult because a lot of this

speech you're seeing happening on reddit is protected under the first amendment. and so some of these speech regulations that some lawmakers want to put on preparations have a high constitutional bar to clear. at the end of the day on reddit, it bears scrutiny. the stock is good and i want to buy it there may have been manipulations going on elsewhere. i'm not sure it was happening on reddit >> when it comes to the finance side we've seen reddit at least spark if not drive i wonder if you have a take on what the message is long term, the lesson is for consumer fintech. is this a moment where robinhood has done something right, or is this a moment where, boy, they're encouraging people in trading volatile stocks, trading on margins, trading options. we might see the treasury secretary and others come in

with recommendations tamping down on that in the environment? what do you think? >> i think this was a huge moment for financial inclusion and a lot of people saying people getting involved in the market and literacy. this is not necessarily a good thing. i think, look, i've been involved in the education sector for the last nine years and one thing i know is that people need a reason to learn and a reason to get involved. and now they have one. i think what we'll see is thinking about how every fintech product, every social media product including reddit needs to be a learning and education opportunity as well. i want to see layers built on top where now that someone is new to the market they can start thinking more about, okay, what does it mean to be on margin what is a call what is a put. they can better understand what they're getting involved in. when i talked to several

brokerages this week they talked about how this was a pr and communications lesson for them as well. and many of them talked about how they might have done things differently, and i think everyone will be learning from this >> casey, finally, as someone who has done a lot of work looking at the down side, the dark side of social behavior online, i wonder to that point is there a way for the industry and for fintech to not let this become an even darker example of what happens when we're on a community? >> i think we're still trying to figure out what to make of these communities that can create perception that then becomes reality sometimes within a matter of hours or days. this is the pandora's box that is the internet that we have opened up and i think it's good that we're all thinking about ways that we might want to rein it in but it very much feels like we're in new territory here >> yeah. with that gamestop now down 26%. that's going to take you back to

january 25th where the low was 61 appreciate the conversation. we'll talk to you soon thanks citi taking action after qualcomm's disappointing earnings downgrading the stock to neutral saying the 5g upside is likely over after margin guidance missed last night more bumps in the road ahead we dive deep near that quarter at the bottom of this hour wanna build a gaming business that breaks the internet? that means working night and day... ...and delegating to an experienced live bookkeeper for peace of mind. your books are all set. so you can finally give john some attention. trusted experts. guaranteed accurate books. intuit quickbooks live. the holidays weren't exactly smooth sledding this year, eh santa? no, but we came through smelling of mistletoe.

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truist shares falling. investors look forward to its spinoff. joey, thanks for joining us today. >> hey, julia. thanks for having me >> now you saw great momentum in your unit which we just mentioned. you are going to be spinning off in the next couple of months but you did see home services slow in january. i know you stopped giving guidance but give us a sense of what these numbers, both from q4 and the numbers released about january, indicate about the year ahead. >> probably not too much january and q4 are about the same there was an accounting change that made the growth rate numbers look a little bit different. and then i think the first couple weeks of january were bizarre in a number of our

businesses given everything that was going on in the world. we're optimistic that the quarter and the year will look better than january looked and there's a bunch of reasons why that's, i think, sort of anomalous for the month. we put out monthly numbers because we don't want any particular moment to be a big event. we want people to see the rhythm but we don't get too hung up on what happens in one month. >> we've heard from a number of other companies about this idea of a pull forward just this week spotify was saying it's possible that a lot of their user growth was pulling forward what they would have seen in 2021. curious if you think you're experiencing something similar especially at companies you own like vimeo >> i don't think so. certainly there was a couple weeks in march where just the massive influx in something like vimeo, but i don't -- and there's no question from a large macro perspective we accelerated

the market forward multiple years in terms of penetration, people using video products and understanding the value to their organizations or as individuals. no question about that do we think that 2020 itself was something that was moved forward? i'm sorry, 2020 was moved forward? i'm not really sure. it was a general shift forward, but i'm not sure we sort of robbed the future as much as we just accelerated forward >> and now that you are moving towards that spin of vimeo, where are you going to be focusing it now? is it going to be more on your units like care.com? is it going to be online gambling where will you be looking for more acquisitions? >> it's a great question it's the biggest question for us we're always going to prioritize our businesses like amg and care we're generally going to be better at doing acquisitions and

things where we have a foothold and can be smart on that that will be the priority but we're looking for new opportunities and online gaming is one it's amaze to go see what bet mgm, this gem inside of mgm. one thing we were excited about and there was the online business and that is proving to be as good or more than we imagined it could be that's an exciting trend especially seeing what's happening right now with the start to the year and what's happening in michigan in particular >> it's jon fortt. what's your take on travel as a category heading out of the time that we're in and the sort of bets that are smartest to be placed on that category? >> jon, i don't know if we have any amazing specific insight i do believe anecdotally more than anything that there is pentup demand. i look at myself and the people

i interact with. pentup demand for getting out and traveling. i think there is a decent chance when it happens, the question is when, when it happens we will see a big bump in things like travel and hopefully like mgm with people saying i can finally get out. i want to enjoy myself and mgm hopefully is a beneficiary of that >> i'm curious as you look at acquisitions in all of these phases if you think you're going to be facing more competition from the spacs there have been so many spacs this year all chasing startups to take public and a lot of them possibly in the same space as you're looking, what will that mean for your opportunities? >> when you have a huge amount of can pital that can lead to sm strange things happening you have all this capital raised and all it have has a two-year fuse on it

that means all that capital has to chase kind of the same things and kind of the same time frame. i think you'll see some interesting things in that situation. hopefully long term i think we could be a beneficiary of that which is we like to see companies out in the public and sort of a good -- generally a good -- the public provides a good, honest review after company's performance and a company's prospects over the long term. we think that's generally better than things hiding in the private market that could be long term good for us short term i think very hard to compete for assets with the spac volume and the spac time frame on that. i hope to be beneficiaries of that the spac parade is running well with toro. they have grown, notwithstanding there being no travel, pure to pure car sharing it's grown, notwithstanding the

job in travel. i think there's an argument that when travel goes back that business will be in a great position and that's a private company and so the spac rate marches to that one. >> interesting now you do mention you like to take these companies public. you had match and now you have vimeo. while the mass amount of investors are institutional. as you think of taking companies public, spinning them off, how does the reddit trade, the robinhood trade we've been talking about earlier in this hour, impact your perspective on the public markets >> not probably meaningfully i think it's a real trend. i don't think it will stop i think it's something people have to pay attention to it has nothing to do with the fundamentals you have to know that force is very powerful and is very interesting, fun to watch from the sidelines. and be conscious of what it can

do i don't think anything we do will be focused on fundamentals and those trends are less so focused on those same things >> well, we look forward to seeing what the next chapter of iac is after that vimeo spinoff. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. keep your eye on paypal today. record payment volume. atlantic ups it to overweight. price target 315 as the company adds more than 16 million new accounts in the quarter. that's an all-time high this morning. we're back in a moment

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welcome back, everybody. i'm sue herera here's your cnbc news update this hour. congressional investigators say they have found dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals in some baby foods from major national

brands the report also calls out walmart, campbell's soup and sprout organic foods for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. walmart and campbell's say they did respond. mckinsey and company has agreed to pay $573 million for its role in advising businesses on how to sell more opioid painkillers secretary of defense lloyd austin ordering all branches of the armed forces to take time to address extremism in its ranks this after current and former members of the military took part in the capitol hill riot. and the world health organization says breast cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer this comes on world cancer day the group says more than one in five people will develop cancer during their lifetimes you are up to date i'll see you againn hr. ianou

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some new developments on shares with robert frost on koss >> reporter: the executives and directors of koss sold $44 million in stock early this week while it was getting swept up in the reddit trades. the koss family sold $31 million in stock that's actually more than the entire market cap was the milwaukee-based head phone maker before its shares went parabolic

from $3 to $64 as it became a favorite of the wall street bets crowd. now it looks like they probably sold over about two or three days at prices between $19 a share and $60 a share. other directors or executives sold an additional 13 million. koss with a low dollar share price. that's what made it a favorite among these traders. now it's unclear whether the sales were part of a prearranged trading plan a company spokesperson declined to comment when reached by cnbc. carl >> robert, just so we're clear here, this isn't about hedge funds shorting koss. this is a transfer of wealth from the retail traders so i guess we're attempting a short squeeze into the koss family themselves, right? and the directors of the company?

>> the traders were buying and the koss family was selling. that is exactly what happened. now, again, we don't know whether these sales were part of a prearranged sale plan. we don't know what they plan to do with this money we don't know whether this reflects their confidence in the future but you're exactly right. the money that went into these purchases by these traders went to the family when they sold and, again, these are massive sales. $31 million for the family $14 million for the directors. this company was only worth $26 million before these traders got in so this is a huge profit for the family >> yeah, robert, it's amazing. of course we have "the journal" piece on the hedge fund that made $17 million on the gamestop trade. what disclosure restrictions were there or are there in place to make these types of sales more transparent >> well, the great thing is they

had to report them to the s.e.c. which is how we got them and remember back in '99-2000, a magazine cover, "fortune" or one of them, you bought, they sold and they were just looking at all the kms and the executives that sold shares as the retail buyer was buying i have a feeling this is not going to be the only one of these examples insiders or major shareholders sold into these rallies this share is going from $3 to $64. it's hard not to >> well, so my question there is if there are going to be multiple examples of things like this where a family, where a company can really profit from the retail trade, do you think that's going to turn the tide and have the reddit conversation shift and say, hey, maybe we shouldn't be doing things that are just going to benefit these company owners, these people who

control the stock? >> i think, julia, one thing that's going to emerge from this is that the premise of this wall street trading crowd was let's get the man. let's get the big guy. let's have a transfer of wealth from them to us. i think what we're going to see is that the people who actually got wealthy from all of this activity wasn't the retail trader it was the large firms at wall street whether it's the clearing houses or hedge funds that were long some of these or got in, and the big insiders that own these companies. so i think what will be interesting to see, whether we see big insider seller's futures we'll see. what we will start to see emerge from the filings is the transfer of wealth wasn't to the traders. it was, in fact, to the big wall street firms and we'll see who actually got wealthy from all of this and i think it will be a surprise to a lot of these traders that thought it was the reverse. >> yeah, robert.

investing versus gambling. when you bet the house tends to win more often than not. robert frost, thank you. qualcomm shares continue to fall this morning after revenue fell a bit short and the margin guide was light. our next guest also writes that the shortage in chips could trigger a national security concern. the co-founder joins us now. brad, first on qualcomm, it's an interesting quarter because their chips business, snap dragon, 5g, their own technology they built into chips, outpe outperformed, did quite well in the smartphone chip business overall the past three months, the next three months falling light of analyst expectations. what do you think this says about the smartphone and 5g environment? >> i think we're in a transition period going from 4g phones to 5g phones. there's always a lot of

lumpiness. i remember going back from 2 to 2 1/2 to 3g. the cycle impacts when advertising is going on for 5g the carriers are spending a lot of money on spectrum here in the u.s. it's being deployed around the world. we're in the lumpy period of deployment long term i think it's very clear 5g is an evolution brings low latency, higher bandwidth, connected devices. we're going to see a lot more ai out at the edge as opposed to in at the cloud we'll see a lot of great applications coming. it's one of the mega themes creating demand for semiconductors overall which is why we're seeing such tight demand across the supply chain right now which we think is an important issue that the united states needs to work with partners around the world to address. >> part of what's so interesting about this moment and even as you describe it, the demand for chips not only globally but for

chips manufactured in the u.s. is what intel is going through new ceo coming in momentarily at intel. questions about how much they should focus on manufacturing but there's no u.s. chip manufacturer that's more invested than intel and you're saying, it seems, it's in the national security interest for the u.s. to build up more chip manufacturing. what do you think intel should do now what should policymakers do now when it comes to intel >> that's right. we certainly see gm shutting more production lines down this week having cars not manufactured is a bit of an annoyance. if we can't get chips for military jets, artificial intelligence application that is the economy is increasingly running on, it's a big problem intel, as you say, is one of the three largest manufacturers of chips in the world they are still on the leading edge they've stumbled three to four years now. the situation should be improved at intel

hopefully breathe some oxygen back into what was a once great and innovative engineering culture. the world simply can't go on without intel. they have such a high share of compute. but we're going to see a lot more types of chips that we need whether it's arm based processors, the big cloud companies, amazon, microsoft google developing their own chips. outside of intel most are made in taiwan, samsung in south korea and the u.s. really lacks the infrastructure it needs. and we propose the u.s. get together with these companies that are designing these chips that rely on these chips, amazon, apple, facebook, microsoft, all of these, nvidia, qualcomm, and build $100 billion of capacity on u.s. soil we need to start today it will take a decade. and that will diversify the supply chain, derisk the supply chain and ensure that partners in the west have the supply that they need to keep the economy

running. the economy now runs on semiconductors we are transitioning to a digital economy f. we don't have these chips we're in trouble >> so, brad, tell us a little bit more about this proposed joint venture. you mentioned $100 billion it will take ten years how does this start to come together you want to have everyone involved in it from intel to apple, amazon and google who could be the one to put that together >> well, i think it needs to be a joint effort, and we need to rely on technology from samsung and tsmc they have announced a fab in arizona. samsung has capacity in austin both companies will be adding leading edge capacity in the u.s. it's a very small percentage the u.s. produces around 10%, 12% of global chips right now. and that number will come down if we don't add the capacity here these companies have a lot to lose apple relies on semiconductors made in one spot in taiwan and

tmsc is an incredible company but if something were to happen there effectively we could possibly go years without apple being able to ship iphones or ipads. it is an existential situation the government needs to back it. intel should be part of it micron is another great chip manufacturer here in the u.s likely europe should be involved with this. they have the same vulnerabilities themselves we would hate to see five or ten years go by, the risk escalate more and more between the east and the west and nothing done here in the united states to address these vulnerabilities. >> all right well, brad, right before you came on the air, it was gm yesterday and today it's ford. just crossed on the wires a moment ago dropping a shift in dearborn beginning monday as the chip shortage continues to have an impact on them and the rest of the industry. so maybe in the short term they say this is going to be a full first half story at least. maybe some of the lessons get learned in the next few months >> we hope so. we hope so

>> all right, brad great to have you. thanks >> thanks. meantime, paypal shares gaining this morning after strong earnings results. that stock up over 5%. kate rooney has that for us. kate hey, julia, paypal getting a bump this morning up about, like you said, 5% right now after a record quarter for the company the pandemic continues to fuel some of the online payments. the company topped all wall street estimates and net income tripled for the quarter. i spoke to dan shulman, the ceo of paypal yesterday right before the call he said 2020 was the strongest year in paypal's history. they topped $6 billion in the quarter in revenue for the first time some of the brick and mortar numbers he mentioned some of the numbers in store which we think of paypala as this company that

had gained in the fourth quarter. huge jump in payment volume and a jump in payment volume for venmo in particular up about 60%. venmo is expected to approach $900 million in revenue for 2021 also a couple of analyst upgrades this morning. we didn't get as much detail on crypto they did launch in the fourth quarter, but that is driving user engagement. shulman said on the call that users who were buying crypto or bitcoin on paypal were twice as engaged as before buying bitcoin. that's driving some engagement on the platform. shulman saying he doesn't expect people to go back to the lives they were living and the way they were shopping before the pandemic the digital economy is here to stay which, of course, good thing for paypal back to you. >> kate, thanks so much. and keep an eye on shares of grub this morning, a miss on revenue last night that stock down over 4%.

and you're seeing that big drop there. now grub saying its bottom line suffered because of increased marketing costs and promotional support for restaurants. we have a lot more "squawk alley" ahead

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a pretty good day for ebay all-time high coming off the highs of the session we did talk to the ceo in the last hour on the earnings beat the strong guidance, the 13% div

hike and the $4 billion addition to the buyback program you can watch the full interview on cnbc.com. in the meantime we're back in a moment

our next guest counts robinhood as one of its competitors allowing retail investors to trade in shares of a company. the ceo of investing app stockpile joins us now victor, i understand that like robinhood you want to have

access to investing and your focus is fractional shares tell us other ways you see what you're offering as different than what robinhood is >> i don't want to comment on robinhood in particular but at stockpile we offer tools to help make long-term investing decisions. we're not a platform for day traders. we don't offer risky investment tools like options or margin because we don't believe those are responsible tools for new investors. we want people to be able to make responsible investing choices with the proper financial literacy and education which is one of the things that we focus on. >> now i'm curious if you've seen an impact, though, of the backlash to robinhood in the wake of all of this gamestop, reddit trade and the fact that some people are unable to sell those or buy the gamestop shares and what has that meant to your business >> we've seen a lot of reaction to that. we've seen an influx of new customers and additional trading

behavior and as part of that we made sure that we had discussions with our clearing firm, but ultimately for us, you know, we were able to execute the vast majority of trades, but more importantly, you know, we wanted people that come on to the platform really to look at things for the longer term, right? we want to make sure that when people are making investing choices and they're not making short-term decisions around the next six minutes or six hours. we want people to think about the next years or 60 years and it's why we're offering a low pricing and we're not a platform for day traders. it's not a momentary decision, but a lifelong decision. >> victor, on the one hand, you've got a lot of traders who are going to go through some pain or some losses because of the way they jumped into some of these options or shares. you've got regulatory pressure and at the same time, thintech in general got a big look from big part of the country that

weren't familiar with it before. has the last week or two been a positive or not? >> i think the one thing is that it's been a sobering time for everyone, and there's been a knowledge of certain risk and investing. we want retail investors and we want there to be equal financial opportunity, but i think the most important thing that's happened is that in the past two weeks investing and personal finance has become a mainstream topic of discussion. you know, i think when my two teenage boys and my hairdresser are asking about what's gamestop how do i invest? how does the stock market work i think in the end that really benefits everybody because people are proactively making the choices to learn about what investing is and how it works. >> victor, so often, though we go through these periods where the market's at a high the retail consumer gets into day trading, calling it

investing, really it's gambling and so many people try to hype that and say it's all inherently good just because people are participating. you know, i want the retail investor to participate, to be educated and to make long-term, informed bets. i'm not sure that's what's happening. how do we get the retail investor better informed, in this for the long term and a way that's sustainable >> i think you're exactly right. i think the solution to all of that is always literacy, education and awareness. i think the big thing that's happening right now with a lot of people jumping in is they're unaware of the risks that they're taking so the open dialogue between people about what does it mean or what are the risks? i think that's the benefit, but you know, what we really need to do is make sure that people are taking the time to do that we've had significant growth

stockpiled with new customers, but what's more encouraging for us is we've seep a significant rise in our educational pages and our rookie starter guide for new investors. we want to provide that literacy and confidence to not have people feel like they have to trade in and out all day we want people to think long term, once again that it's not a momentary decision, that it's a long-term decision and those types of tools are attracting people who are not traditionally engaged by the financial community. 25% of our customers are kids. 45% of our customers are women these are people that have been marginalized or disenfranchised by the investing industry and we want there to be equal financial opportunity for them, but through the right responsible tools and the financial literacy so that they can make informed choices. >> victor, as we talk to you, we're showing gamestop shares. that stock down 30% today. there is so much volatility in the market right now treasury secretary yellen is

calling a meeting of top financial regulators and i'm wondering what kind of regulatory change you see coming that would really impact your business and not just in terms of short selling, but in terms of everything about the democratization of trading how do you see that impacting the whole thintech space moving forward? >> i don't think i'm in a position to comment about what the regulators should do, but i do know what's important for the investing industry as a whole is to make sure that there's an equal playing field, and that there's equal opportunity for all investors and for us to make sure that they have the right investing tools and the right investing information, once again, to make the most informed choices for the long term. >> such a fascinating time for your space, victor and interesting how much growth you've experienced >> thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you >> if you're wondering why do

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alternative dogecoin getting a ridiculous boost this morning, up about 50% and the surge this morning in part because of elon musk tweet, among them, no high, nolos, just doge john, he doesn't even have to give context now he has become meme, as he says. >> just to be clear, dogecoin is nothing like bitcoin it wasn't intended to be anything like kind of a real cryptocurrency it's almost as if somebody decided to make a real economy out of chuck e. cheese tokens and then a bunch of other people decided to take that seriously, just -- anyway >> i mean, this is such a testament that elon musk has 45 million followers on twitter if he tweets a cheeky meme people really listen finally, guys, a quick mention before we go, do not miss snap

ceo evan spiegel, co-founder, and he will be joining us in a cnbc exclusive after earnings that are coming up this afternoon and we'll have that interview tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern right here on "squawk alley". >> yeah that will be huge, julia. along with ford, we'll be watching the f-150 production cut as they face a chips cut, and jobs tomorrow. let's get to the half. >> welcome to the halftime report i'm scott wapner how high could an apple car drive that stock the street is weighing in on that question today and so, of course, is our investment committee. we'll discuss and debate that big news that our verien phil lebeau broke, john brown, jon najarian, steve weiss and brenda nagelo >> take a look across the board there and the dow jones industrials 30,980 a little more than .75%.

s&p, nasdaq,